THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN

by

ZANE GREY

PREFATORY NOTE

Buffalo Jones needs no introduction to American sportsmen, but to these of my readers who are unacquaintedwith him a few words may not be amiss.

He was born sixty-two years ago on the Illinois prairie, and he has devoted practically all of his life to the pursuitof wild animals. It has been a pursuit which owed its unflagging energy and indomitable purpose to a singular passion,almost an obsession, to capture alive, not to kill. He has caught and broken the will of every well-known wild beastnative to western North America. Killing was repulsive to him. He even disliked the sight of a sporting rifle, though foryears necessity compelled him to earn his livelihood by supplying the meat of buffalo to the caravans crossing theplains. At last, seeing that the extinction of the noble beasts was inevitable, he smashed his rifle over a wagon wheeland vowed to save the species. For ten years he labored, pursuing, capturing and taming buffalo, for which the Westgave him fame, and the name Preserver of the American Bison.

As civilization encroached upon the plains Buffalo Jones ranged slowly westward; and to-day an isolated desert-bound plateau on the north rim of the Grand Canyon of Arizona is his home. There his buffalo browse with themustang and deer, and are as free as ever they were on the rolling plains.

In the spring of 1907 I was the fortunate companion of the old plainsman on a trip across the desert, and a hunt inthat wonderful country of yellow crags, deep canyons and giant pines. I want to tell about it. I want to show the colorand beauty of those painted cliffs and the long, brown-matted bluebell-dotted aisles in the grand forests; I want to givea suggestion of the tang of the dry, cool air; and particularly I want to throw a little light upon the life and nature of thatstrange character and remarkable man, Buffalo Jones.

Happily in remembrance a writer can live over his experiences, and see once more the moonblanched silvermountain peaks against the dark blue sky; hear the lonely sough of the night wind through the pines; feel the dance ofwild expectation in the quivering pulse; the stir, the thrill, the joy of hard action in perilous moments; the mystery ofman's yearning for the unattainable.

As a boy I read of Boone with a throbbing heart, and the silent moccasined, vengeful Wetzel I loved.

I pored over the deeds of later men--Custer and Carson, those heroes of the plains. And as a man I came to see thewonder, the tragedy of their lives, and to write about them. It has been my destiny--what a happy fulfillment of mydreams of border spirit!--to live for a while in the fast-fading wild environment which produced these great men with thelast of the great plainsmen.

ZANE GREY.

CONTENTS

1. THE ARIZONA DESERT2. THE RANGE3. THE LAST HERD

4. THE TRAIL5. OAK SPRING6. THE WHITE MUSTANG7. SNAKE GULCH8. NAZA! NAZA! NAZA!9. THE LAND OF THE MUSK-OX

10. SUCCESS AND FAILURE11. ON TO THE SIWASH12. OLD TOM13. SINGING CLIFFS14. ALL HEROES BUT ONE15. JONES ON COUGARS16. KITTY17. CONCLUSION

CHAPTER 1.

THE ARIZONA DESERT

One afternoon, far out on the sun-baked waste of sage, we made camp near a clump of withered pinyon trees. Thecold desert wind came down upon us with the sudden darkness. Even the Mormons, who were finding the trail for usacross the drifting sands, forgot to sing and pray at sundown. We huddled round the campfire, a tired and silent littlegroup. When out of the lonely, melancholy night some wandering Navajos stole like shadows to our fire, we hailedtheir advent with delight. They were good-natured Indians, willing to barter a blanket or bracelet; and one of them, atall, gaunt fellow, with the bearing of a chief, could speak a little English.

"How," said he, in a deep chest voice.

"Hello, Noddlecoddy," greeted Jim Emmett, the Mormon guide.

"Ugh!" answered the Indian.

"Big paleface--Buffalo Jones---big chief--buffalo man," introduced Emmett, indicating Jones.

"How." The Navajo spoke with dignity, and extended a friendly hand.

"Jones big white chief--rope buffalo--tie up tight," continued Emmett, making motions with his arm, as if he werewhirling a lasso.

"No big--heap small buffalo," said the Indian, holding his hand level with his knee, and smiling broadly.

Jones, erect, rugged, brawny, stood in the full light of the campfire. He had a dark, bronzed, inscrutable face; astern mouth and square jaw, keen eyes, half-closed from years of searching the wide plains; and deep furrows wrinklinghis cheeks. A strange stillness enfolded his feature the tranquility earned from a long life of adventure.

He held up both muscular hands to the Navajo, and spread out his fingers.

"Rope buffalo--heap big buffalo--heap many--one sun."

The Indian straightened up, but kept his friendly smile.

"Me big chief," went on Jones, "me go far north--Land of Little Sticks--Naza! Naza! rope musk-ox; rope WhiteManitou of Great Slave Naza! Naza!"

"Naza!" replied the Navajo, pointing to the North Star; "no--no."

"Yes me big paleface--me come long way toward setting sun--go cross Big Water--go Buckskin--Siwash--chasecougar."

The cougar, or mountain lion, is a Navajo god and the Navajos hold him in as much fear and reverence as do theGreat Slave Indians the musk-ox.

"No kill cougar," continued Jones, as the Indian's bold features hardened. "Run cougar horseback--run long way--dogs chase cougar long time--chase cougar up tree! Me big chief--me climb tree--climb high up--lasso cougar--ropecougar--tie cougar all tight."

The Navajo's solemn face relaxed

"White man heap fun. No."

"Yes," cried Jones, extending his great arms. "Me strong; me rope cougar--me tie cougar; ride off wigwam, keepcougar alive."

"No," replied the savage vehemently.

"Yes," protested Jones, nodding earnestly.

"No," answered the Navajo, louder, raising his dark head.

"Yes!" shouted Jones.

"BIG LIE!" the Indian thundered.

Jones joined good-naturedly in the laugh at his expense. The Indian had crudely voiced a skepticism I had heardmore delicately hinted in New York, and singularly enough, which had strengthened on our way West, as we metranchers, prospectors and cowboys. But those few men I had fortunately met, who really knew Jones, more thanoverbalanced the doubt and ridicule cast upon him. I recalled a scarred old veteran of the plains, who had talked to mein true Western bluntness:

"Say, young feller, I heerd yer couldn't git acrost the Canyon fer the deep snow on the north rim. Wal, ye're lucky.Now, yer hit the trail fer New York, an' keep goin'! Don't ever tackle the desert, 'specially with them Mormons. They'vegot water on the brain, wusser 'n religion. It's two hundred an' fifty miles from Flagstaff to Jones range, an' only twodrinks on the trail. I know this hyar Buffalo Jones. I knowed him way back in the seventies, when he was doin' themropin' stunts thet made him famous as the preserver of the American bison. I know about that crazy trip of his'n to theBarren Lands, after musk-ox. An' I reckon I kin guess what he'll do over there in the Siwash. He'll rope cougars--sure hewill--an' watch 'em jump. Jones would rope the devil, an' tie him down if the lasso didn't burn. Oh! he's hell on ropin'things. An' he's wusser 'n hell on men, an' hosses, an' dogs."

All that my well-meaning friend suggested made me, of course, only the more eager to go with Jones. Where I hadonce been interested in the old buffalo hunter, I was now fascinated. And now I was with him in the desert and seeinghim as he was, a simple, quiet man, who fitted the mountains and the silences, and the long reaches of distance.

"It does seem hard to believe--all this about Jones," remarked Judd, one of Emmett's men.

"How could a man have the strength and the nerve? And isn't it cruel to keep wild animals in captivity? it againstGod's word?"

Quick as speech could flow, Jones quoted: "And God said, 'Let us make man in our image, and give him dominionover the fish of the sea, the fowls of the air, over all the cattle, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon theearth'!"

"Dominion--over all the beasts of the field!" repeated Jones, his big voice rolling out. He clenched his huge fists,and spread wide his long arms. "Dominion! That was God's word!" The power and intensity of him could be felt. Thenhe relaxed, dropped his arms, and once more grew calm. But he had shown a glimpse of the great, strange andabsorbing passion of his life. Once he had told me how, when a mere child, he had hazarded limb and neck to capture afox squirrel, how he had held on to the vicious little animal, though it bit his hand through; how he had never learned toplay the games of boyhood; that when the youths of the little Illinois village were at play, he roamed the prairies, or therolling, wooded hills, or watched a gopher hole. That boy was father of the man: for sixty years an enduring passion for

dominion over wild animals had possessed him, and made his life an endless pursuit.

Our guests, the Navajos, departed early, and vanished silently in the gloom of the desert. We settled down againinto a quiet that was broken only by the low chant-like song of a praying Mormon. Suddenly the hounds bristled, andold Moze, a surly and aggressive dog, rose and barked at some real or imaginary desert prowler. A sharp command fromJones made Moze crouch down, and the other hounds cowered close together.

"Better tie up the dogs," suggested Jones. "Like as not coyotes run down here from the hills."

The hounds were my especial delight. But Jones regarded them with considerable contempt. When all was said,this was no small wonder, for that quintet of long-eared canines would have tried the patience of a saint. Old Moze wasa Missouri hound that Jones had procured in that State of uncertain qualities; and the dog had grown old over coon-trails. He was black and white, grizzled and battlescarred; and if ever a dog had an evil eye, Moze was that dog. He hada way of wagging his tail--an indeterminate, equivocal sort of wag, as if he realized his ugliness and knew he stood littlechance of making friends, but was still hopeful and willing. As for me, the first time he manifested this evidence of agood heart under a rough coat, he won me forever.

To tell of Moze's derelictions up to that time would take more space than would a history of the whole trip; but theenumeration of several incidents will at once stamp him as a dog of character, and will establish the fact that even if hisprogenitors had never taken any blue ribbons, they had at least bequeathed him fighting blood. At Flagstaff wechained him in the yard of a livery stable. Next morning we found him hanging by his chain on the other side of aneight-foot fence. We took him down, expecting to have the sorrowful duty of burying him; but Moze shook himself,wagged his tail and then pitched into the livery stable dog. As a matter of fact, fighting was his forte. He whipped all ofthe dogs in Flagstaff; and when our blood hounds came on from California, he put three of them hors de combat atonce, and subdued the pup with a savage growl. His crowning feat, however, made even the stoical Jones open hismouth in amaze. We had taken Moze to the El Tovar at the Grand Canyon, and finding it impossible to get over to thenorth rim, we left him with one of Jones's men, called Rust, who was working on the Canyon trail. Rust's instructionswere to bring Moze to Flagstaff in two weeks. He brought the dog a little ahead time, and roared his appreciation of therelief it to get the responsibility off his hands. And he related many strange things, most striking of which was howMoze had broken his chain and plunged into the raging Colorado River, and tried to swim it just above the terribleSockdolager Rapids. Rust and his fellow-workmen watched the dog disappear in the yellow, wrestling, turbulent whirlof waters, and had heard his knell in the booming roar of the falls. Nothing but a fish could live in that current; nothingbut a bird could scale those perpendicular marble walls. That night, however, when the men crossed on the tramway,Moze met them with a wag of his tail. He had crossed the river, and he had come back!

To the four reddish-brown, high-framed bloodhounds I had given the names of Don, Tige, Jude and Ranger; andby dint of persuasion, had succeeded in establishing some kind of family relation between them and Moze. This night Itied up the bloodhounds, after bathing and salving their sore feet; and I left Moze free, for he grew fretful and surlyunder restraint.

The Mormons, prone, dark, blanketed figures, lay on the sand. Jones was crawling into his bed. I walked a littleway from the dying fire, and faced the north, where the desert stretched, mysterious and illimitable. How solemn andstill it was! I drew in a great breath of the cold air, and thrilled with a nameless sensation. Something was there, away tothe northward; it called to me from out of the dark and gloom; I was going to meet it.

I lay down to sleep with the great blue expanse open to my eyes. The stars were very large, and wonderfullybright, yet they seemed so much farther off than I had ever seen them. The wind softly sifted the sand. I hearkened tothe tinkle of the cowbells on the hobbled horses. The last thing I remembered was old Moze creeping close to my side,seeking the warmth of my body.

When I awakened, a long, pale line showed out of the dun-colored clouds in the east. It slowly lengthened, andtinged to red. Then the morning broke, and the slopes of snow on the San Francisco peaks behind us glowed a delicatepink. The Mormons were up and doing with the dawn. They were stalwart men, rather silent, and all workers. It wasinteresting to see them pack for the day's journey. They traveled with wagons and mules, in the most primitive way,which Jones assured me was exactly as their fathers had crossed the plains fifty years before, on the trail to Utah.

All morning we made good time, and as we descended into the desert, the air became warmer, the scrubby cedargrowth began to fail, and the bunches of sage were few and far between. I turned often to gaze back at the SanFrancisco peaks. The snowcapped tips glistened and grew higher, and stood out in startling relief. Some one said theycould be seen two hundred miles across the desert, and were a landmark and a fascination to all travelers thitherward.

I never raised my eyes to the north that I did not draw my breath quickly and grow chill with awe andbewilderment with the marvel of the desert. The scaly red ground descended gradually; bare red knolls, like waves,rolled away northward; black buttes reared their flat heads; long ranges of sand flowed between them like streams, andall sloped away to merge into gray, shadowy obscurity, into wild and desolate, dreamy and misty nothingness.

"Do you see those white sand dunes there, more to the left?" asked Emmett. "The Little Colorado runs in there.How far does it look to you?"

"Thirty miles, perhaps," I replied, adding ten miles to my estimate.

"It's seventy-five. We'll get there day after to-morrow. If the snow in the mountains has begun to melt, we'll have atime getting across."

That afternoon, a hot wind blew in my face, carrying fine sand that cut and blinded. It filled my throat, sending meto the water cask till I was ashamed. When I fell into my bed at night, I never turned. The next day was hotter; the windblew harder; the sand stung sharper.

About noon the following day, the horses whinnied, and the mules roused out of their tardy gait. "They smellwater," said Emmett. And despite the heat, and the sand in my nostrils, I smelled it, too. The dogs, poor foot-sorefellows, trotted on ahead down the trail. A few more miles of hot sand and gravel and red stone brought us around alow mesa to the Little Colorado.

It was a wide stream of swiftly running, reddish-muddy water. In the channel, cut by floods, little streams trickledand meandered in all directions. The main part of the river ran in close to the bank we were on. The dogs lolled in thewater; the horses and mules tried to run in, but were restrained; the men drank, and bathed their faces. According to myFlagstaff adviser, this was one of the two drinks I would get on the desert, so I availed myself heartily of theopportunity. The water was full of sand, but cold and gratefully thirst-quenching.

The Little Colorado seemed no more to me than a shallow creek; I heard nothing sullen or menacing in its musicalflow.

"Doesn't look bad, eh?" queried Emmett, who read my thought. "You'd be surprised to learn how many men andIndians, horses, sheep and wagons are buried under that quicksand."

The secret was out, and I wondered no more. At once the stream and wet bars of sand took on a different color. Iremoved my boots, and waded out to a little bar. The sand seemed quite firm, but water oozed out around my feet; andwhen I stepped, the whole bar shook like jelly. I pushed my foot through the crust, and the cold, wet sand took hold,and tried to suck me down.

"How can you ford this stream with horses?" I asked Emmett.

"We must take our chances," replied he. "We'll hitch two teams to one wagon, and run the horses. I've forded hereat worse stages than this. Once a team got stuck, and I had to leave it; another time the water was high, and washed medownstream."

Emmett sent his son into the stream on a mule. The rider lashed his mount, and plunging, splashing, crossed at apace near a gallop. He returned in the same manner, and reported one bad place near the other side.

Jones and I got on the first wagon and tried to coax up the dogs, but they would not come. Emmett had to lash thefour horses to start them; and other Mormons riding alongside, yelled at them, and used their whips. The wagonbowled into the water with a tremendous splash. We were wet through before we had gone twenty feet. The plunginghorses were lost in yellow spray; the stream rushed through the wheels; the Mormons yelled. I wanted to see, but waslost in a veil of yellow mist. Jones yelled in my ear, but I could not hear what he said. Once the wagon wheels struck astone or log, almost lurching us overboard. A muddy splash blinded me. I cried out in my excitement, and punchedJones in the back. Next moment, the keen exhilaration of the ride gave way to horror. We seemed to drag, and almoststop. Some one roared: "Horse down!" One instant of painful suspense, in which imagination pictured another tragedyadded to the record of this deceitful river--a moment filled with intense feeling, and sensation of splash, and yell, andfury of action; then the three able horses dragged their comrade out of the quicksand. He regained his feet, andplunged on. Spurred by fear, the horses increased their efforts, and amid clouds of spray, galloped the remainingdistance to the other side.

Jones looked disgusted. Like all plainsmen, he hated water. Emmett and his men calmly unhitched. No trace ofalarm, or even of excitement showed in their bronzed faces.

"We made that fine and easy," remarked Emmett.

So I sat down and wondered what Jones and Emmett, and these men would consider really hazardous. I began tohave a feeling that I would find out; that experience for me was but in its infancy; that far across the desert thesomething which had called me would show hard, keen, perilous life. And I began to think of reserve powers offortitude and endurance.

The other wagons were brought across without mishap; but the dogs did not come with them. Jones called andcalled. The dogs howled and howled. Finally I waded out over the wet bars and little streams to a point several hundredyards nearer the dogs. Moze was lying down, but the others were whining and howling in a state of great perturbation.I called and called. They answered, and even ran into the water, but did not start across.

"Hyah, Moze! hyah, you Indian!" I yelled, losing my patience. "You've already swum the Big Colorado, and this isonly a brook. Come on!"

This appeal evidently touched Moze, for he barked, and plunged in. He made the water fly, and when carried offhis feet, breasted the current with energy and power. He made shore almost even with me, and wagged his tail. Not tobe outdone, Jude, Tige and Don followed suit, and first one and then another was swept off his feet and carrieddownstream. They landed below me. This left Ranger, the pup, alone on the other shore. Of all the pitiful yelps everuttered by a frightened and lonely puppy, his were the most forlorn I had ever heard. Time after time he plunged in, andwith many bitter howls of distress, went back. I kept calling, and at last, hoping to make him come by a show ofindifference, I started away. This broke his heart. Putting up his head, he let out a long, melancholy wail, which foraught I knew might have been a prayer, and then consigned himself to the yellow current. Ranger swam like a boylearning. He seemed to be afraid to get wet. His forefeet were continually pawing the air in front of his nose. When hestruck the swift place, he went downstream like a flash, but still kept swimming valiantly. I tried to follow along thesand-bar, but found it impossible. I encouraged him by yelling. He drifted far below, stranded on an island, crossed it,and plunged in again, to make shore almost out of my sight. And when at last I got to dry sand, there was Ranger, wetand disheveled, but consciously proud and happy.

After lunch we entered upon the seventy-mile stretch from the Little to the Big Colorado.

Imagination had pictured the desert for me as a vast, sandy plain, flat and monotonous. Reality showed medesolate mountains gleaming bare in the sun, long lines of red bluffs, white sand dunes, and hills of blue clay, areas oflevel ground--in all, a many-hued, boundless world in itself, wonderful and beautiful, fading all around into the purplehaze of deceiving distance.

Thin, clear, sweet, dry, the desert air carried a languor, a dreaminess, tidings of far-off things, and an enthrallingpromise. The fragrance of flowers, the beauty and grace of women, the sweetness of music, the mystery of life--allseemed to float on that promise. It was the air breathed by the lotus-eaters, when they dreamed, and wandered no more.

Beyond the Little Colorado, we began to climb again. The sand was thick; the horses labored; the drivers shieldedtheir faces. The dogs began to limp and lag. Ranger had to be taken into a wagon; and then, one by one, all of the otherdogs except Moze. He refused to ride, and trotted along with his head down.

Far to the front the pink cliffs, the ragged mesas, the dark, volcanic spurs of the Big Colorado stood up andbeckoned us onward. But they were a far hundred miles across the shifting sands, and baked day, and ragged rocks.Always in the rear rose the San Francisco peaks, cold and pure, startlingly clear and close in the rare atmosphere.

We camped near another water hole, located in a deep, yellow-colored gorge, crumbling to pieces, a ruin of rock,and silent as the grave. In the bottom of the canyon was a pool of water, covered with green scum. My thirst waseffectually quenched by the mere sight of it. I slept poorly, and lay for hours watching the great stars. The silence waspainfully oppressive. If Jones had not begun to give a respectable imitation of the exhaust pipe on a steamboat, Ishould have been compelled to shout aloud, or get up; but this snoring would have dispelled anything. The morningcame gray and cheerless. I got up stiff and sore, with a tongue like a rope.

All day long we ran the gauntlet of the hot, flying sand. Night came again, a cold, windy night. I slept well until amule stepped on my bed, which was conducive to restlessness. At dawn, cold, gray clouds tried to blot out the rosyeast. I could hardly get up. My lips were cracked; my tongue swollen to twice its natural size; my eyes smarted and

burned. The barrels and kegs of water were exhausted. Holes that had been dug in the dry sand of a dry streambed thenight before in the morning yielded a scant supply of muddy alkali water, which went to the horses.

Only twice that day did I rouse to anything resembling enthusiasm. We came to a stretch of country showing thewonderful diversity of the desert land. A long range of beautifully rounded clay stones bordered the trail. Sosymmetrical were they that I imagined them works of sculptors. Light blue, dark blue, clay blue, marine blue, cobaltblue--every shade of blue was there, but no other color. The other time that I awoke to sensations from without waswhen we came to the top of a ridge. We had been passing through red-lands. Jones called the place a strong, specificword which really was illustrative of the heat amid those scaling red ridges. We came out where the red changedabruptly to gray. I seemed always to see things first, and I cried out: "Look! here are a red lake and trees!"

"No, lad, not a lake," said old Jim, smiling at me; "that's what haunts the desert traveler. It's only mirage!"

So I awoke to the realization of that illusive thing, the mirage, a beautiful lie, false as stairs of sand. Far northward aclear rippling lake sparkled in the sunshine. Tall, stately trees, with waving green foliage, bordered the water. For a longmoment it lay there, smiling in the sun, a thing almost tangible; and then it faded. I felt a sense of actual loss. So realhad been the illusion that I could not believe I was not soon to drink and wade and dabble in the cool waters.Disappointment was keen. This is what maddens the prospector or sheep-herder lost in the desert. Was it not a terriblething to be dying of thirst, to see sparkling water, almost to smell it and then realize suddenly that all was only a lyingtrack of the desert, a lure, a delusion? I ceased to wonder at the Mormons, and their search for water, their talk of water.But I had not realized its true significance. I had not known what water was. I had never appreciated it. So it was mydestiny to learn that water is the greatest thing on earth. I hung over a three-foot hole in a dry stream-bed, and watchedit ooze and seep through the sand, and fill up--oh, so slowly; and I felt it loosen my parched tongue, and steal throughall my dry body with strength and life. Water is said to constitute three fourths of the universe. However that may be,on the desert it is the whole world, and all of life.

Two days passed by, all hot sand and wind and glare. The Mormons sang no more at evening; Jones was silent;the dogs were limp as rags.

At Moncaupie Wash we ran into a sandstorm. The horses turned their backs to it, and bowed their headspatiently. The Mormons covered themselves. I wrapped a blanket round my head and hid behind a sage bush. Thewind, carrying the sand, made a strange hollow roar. All was enveloped in a weird yellow opacity. The sand seepedthrough the sage bush and swept by with a soft, rustling sound, not unlike the wind in the rye. From time to time Iraised a corner of my blanket and peeped out. Where my feet had stretched was an enormous mound of sand. I felt theblanket, weighted down, slowly settle over me.

Suddenly as it had come, the sandstorm passed. It left a changed world for us. The trail was covered; the wheelshub-deep in sand; the horses, walking sand dunes. I could not close my teeth without grating harshly on sand.

We journeyed onward, and passed long lines of petrified trees, some a hundred feet in length, lying as they hadfallen, thousands of years before. White ants crawled among the ruins. Slowly climbing the sandy trail, we circled agreat red bluff with jagged peaks, that had seemed an interminable obstacle. A scant growth of cedar and sage againmade its appearance. Here we halted to pass another night. Under a cedar I heard the plaintive, piteous bleat of ananimal. I searched, and presently found a little black and white lamb, scarcely able to stand. It came readily to me, and Icarried it to the wagon.

"That's a Navajo lamb," said Emmett. "It's lost. There are Navajo Indians close by."

"Away in the desert we heard its cry," quoted one of the Mormons.

Jones and I climbed the red mesa near camp to see the sunset. All the western world was ablaze in golden glory.Shafts of light shot toward the zenith, and bands of paler gold, tinging to rose, circled away from the fiery, sinkingglobe. Suddenly the sun sank, the gold changed to gray, then to purple, and shadows formed in the deep gorge at ourfeet. So sudden was the transformation that soon it was night, the solemn, impressive night of the desert. A stillnessthat seemed too sacred to break clasped the place; it was infinite; it held the bygone ages, and eternity.

More days, and miles, miles, miles! The last day's ride to the Big Colorado was unforgettable. We rode toward thehead of a gigantic red cliff pocket, a veritable inferno, immeasurably hot, glaring, awful. It towered higher and higherabove us. When we reached a point of this red barrier, we heard the dull rumbling roar of water, and we came out, atlength, on a winding trail cut in the face of a blue overhanging the Colorado River. The first sight of most famous andmuch-heralded wonders of nature is often disappointing; but never can this be said of the blood-hued Rio Colorado. If

it had beauty, it was beauty that appalled. So riveted was my gaze that I could hardly turn it across the river, whereEmmett proudly pointed out his lonely home--an oasis set down amidst beetling red cliffs. How grateful to the eye wasthe green of alfalfa and cottonwood! Going round the bluff trail, the wheels had only a foot of room to spare; and thesheer descent into the red, turbid, congested river was terrifying.

I saw the constricted rapids, where the Colorado took its plunge into the box-like head of the Grand Canyon ofArizona; and the deep, reverberating boom of the river, at flood height, was a fearful thing to hear. I could not repress ashudder at the thought of crossing above that rapid.

The bronze walls widened as we proceeded, and we got down presently to a level, where a long wire cablestretched across the river. Under the cable ran a rope. On the other side was an old scow moored to the bank.

"Are we going across in that?" I asked Emmett, pointing to the boat.

"We'll all be on the other side before dark," he replied cheerily.

I felt that I would rather start back alone over the desert than trust myself in such a craft, on such a river. And itwas all because I had had experience with bad rivers, and thought I was a judge of dangerous currents. The Coloradoslid with a menacing roar out of a giant split in the red wall, and whirled, eddied, bulged on toward its confinement inthe iron-ribbed canyon below.

In answer to shots fired, Emmett's man appeared on the other side, and rode down to the ferry landing. Here he gotinto a skiff, and rowed laboriously upstream for a long distance before he started across, and then swung into thecurrent. He swept down rapidly, and twice the skiff whirled, and completely turned round; but he reached our banksafely. Taking two men aboard he rowed upstream again, close to the shore, and returned to the opposite side in muchthe same manner in which he had come over.

The three men pushed out the scow, and grasping the rope overhead, began to pull. The big craft ran easily. Whenthe current struck it, the wire cable sagged, the water boiled and surged under it, raising one end, and then the other.Nevertheless, five minutes were all that were required to pull the boat over.

It was a rude, oblong affair, made of heavy planks loosely put together, and it leaked. When Jones suggested thatwe get the agony over as quickly as possible, I was with him, and we embarked together. Jones said he did not like thelooks of the tackle; and when I thought of his by no means small mechanical skill, I had not added a cheerful idea to myconsciousness. The horses of the first team had to be dragged upon the scow, and once on, they reared and plunged.

When we started, four men pulled the rope, and Emmett sat in the stern, with the tackle guys in hand. As thecurrent hit us, he let out the guys, which maneuver caused the boat to swing stern downstream. When it pointedobliquely, he made fast the guys again. I saw that this served two purposes: the current struck, slid alongside, and overthe stern, which mitigated the danger, and at the same time helped the boat across.

To look at the river was to court terror, but I had to look. It was an infernal thing. It roared in hollow, sullen voice,as a monster growling. It had voice, this river, and one strangely changeful. It moaned as if in pain--it whined, it cried.Then at times it would seem strangely silent. The current as complex and mutable as human life. It boiled, beat andbulged. The bulge itself was an incompressible thing, like a roaring lift of the waters from submarine explosion. Then itwould smooth out, and run like oil. It shifted from one channel to another, rushed to the center of the river, then swungclose to one shore or the other. Again it swelled near the boat, in great, boiling, hissing eddies.

"Look! See where it breaks through the mountain!" yelled Jones in my ear.

I looked upstream to see the stupendous granite walls separated in a gigantic split that must have been made by aterrible seismic disturbance; and from this gap poured the dark, turgid, mystic flood.

I was in a cold sweat when we touched shore, and I jumped long before the boat was properly moored.

Emmett was wet to the waist where the water had surged over him. As he sat rearranging some tackle I remarked tohim that of course he must be a splendid swimmer, or he would not take such risks.

"No, I can't swim a stroke," he replied; "and it wouldn't be any use if I could. Once in there a man's a goner."

"You've had bad accidents here?" I questioned.

"No, not bad. We only drowned two men last year. You see, we had to tow the boat up the river, and row across,as then we hadn't the wire. Just above, on this side, the boat hit a stone, and the current washed over her, taking off theteam and two men."

"Didn't you attempt to rescue them?" I asked, after waiting a moment.

"No use. They never came up."

"Isn't the river high now?" I continued, shuddering as I glanced out at the whirling logs and drifts.

"High, and coming up. If I don't get the other teams over to-day I'll wait until she goes down. At this season sherises and lowers every day or so, until June then comes the big flood, and we don't cross for months."

I sat for three hours watching Emmett bring over the rest of his party, which he did without accident, but at theexpense of great effort. And all the time in my ears dinned the roar, the boom, the rumble of this singularly rapaciousand purposeful river--a river of silt, a red river of dark, sinister meaning, a river with terrible work to perform, a riverwhich never gave up its dead.

CHAPTER 2.

THE RANGE

After a much-needed rest at Emmett's, we bade good-by to him and his hospitable family, and under the guidanceof his man once more took to the wind-swept trail. We pursued a southwesterly course now, following the lead of thecraggy red wall that stretched on and on for hundreds of miles into Utah. The desert, smoky and hot, fell away to theleft, and in the foreground a dark, irregular line marked the Grand Canyon cutting through the plateau.

The wind whipped in from the vast, open expanse, and meeting an obstacle in the red wall, turned north and racedpast us. Jones's hat blew off, stood on its rim, and rolled. It kept on rolling, thirty miles an hour, more or less; so fast, atleast, that we were a long time catching up to it with a team of horses. Possibly we never would have caught it had nota stone checked its flight. Further manifestation of the power of the desert wind surrounded us on all sides. It hadhollowed out huge stones from the cliffs, and tumbled them to the plain below; and then, sweeping sand and gravellow across the desert floor, had cut them deeply, until they rested on slender pedestals, thus sculptoring grotesque andstriking monuments to the marvelous persistence of this element of nature.

Late that afternoon, as we reached the height of the plateau, Jones woke up and shouted: "Ha! there's Buckskin!"

Far southward lay a long, black mountain, covered with patches of shining snow. I could follow the zigzag line ofthe Grand Canyon splitting the desert plateau, and saw it disappear in the haze round the end of the mountain. Fromthis I got my first clear impression of the topography of the country surrounding our objective point. Buckskinmountain ran its blunt end eastward to the Canyon--in fact, formed a hundred miles of the north rim. As it was ninethousand feet high it still held the snow, which had occasioned our lengthy desert ride to get back of the mountain. Icould see the long slopes rising out of the desert to meet the timber.

As we bowled merrily down grade I noticed that we were no longer on stony ground, and that a little scant silverygrass had made its appearance. Then little branches of green, with a blue flower, smiled out of the clayish sand.

All of a sudden Jones stood up, and let out a wild Comanche yell. I was more startled by the yell than by the greathand he smashed down on my shoulder, and for the moment I was dazed.

"There! look! look! the buffalo! Hi! Hi! Hi!"

Below us, a few miles on a rising knoll, a big herd of buffalo shone black in the gold of the evening sun. I had notJones's incentive, but I felt enthusiasm born of the wild and beautiful picture, and added my yell to his. The huge, burlyleader of the herd lifted his head, and after regarding us for a few moments calmly went on browsing.

The desert had fringed away into a grand rolling pastureland, walled in by the red cliffs, the slopes of Buckskin,

and further isolated by the Canyon. Here was a range of twenty-four hundred square miles without a foot of barb-wire,a pasture fenced in by natural forces, with the splendid feature that the buffalo could browse on the plain in winter, andgo up into the cool foothills of Buckskin in summer.

From another ridge we saw a cabin dotting the rolling plain, and in half an hour we reached it. As we climbed downfrom the wagon a brown and black dog came dashing out of the cabin, and promptly jumped at Moze. His selectionshowed poor discrimination, for Moze whipped him before I could separate them. Hearing Jones heartily greeting someone, I turned in his direction, only to be distracted by another dog fight. Don had tackled Moze for the seventh time.Memory rankled in Don, and he needed a lot of whipping, some of which he was getting when I rescued him.

Next moment I was shaking hands with Frank and Jim, Jones's ranchmen. At a glance I liked them both. Frank wasshort and wiry, and had a big, ferocious mustache, the effect of which was softened by his kindly brown eyes. Jim wastall, a little heavier; he had a careless, tidy look; his eyes were searching, and though he appeared a young man, his hairwas white.

"I shore am glad to see you all," said Jim, in slow, soft, Southern accent.

"Get down, get down," was Frank's welcome--a typically Western one, for we had already gotten down; "an' comein. You must be worked out. Sure you've come a long way." He was quick of speech, full of nervous energy, andbeamed with hospitality.

The cabin was the rudest kind of log affair, with a huge stone fireplace in one end, deer antlers and coyote skinson the wall, saddles and cowboys' traps in a corner, a nice, large, promising cupboard, and a table and chairs. Jim threwwood on a smoldering fire, that soon blazed and crackled cheerily.

I sank down into a chair with a feeling of blessed relief. Ten days of desert ride behind me! Promise of wonderfuldays before me, with the last of the old plainsmen. No wonder a sweet sense of ease stole over me, or that the fireseemed a live and joyously welcoming thing, or that Jim's deft maneuvers in preparation of supper roused in me a raptadmiration.

"Twenty calves this spring!" cried Jones, punching me in my sore side. "Ten thousand dollars worth of calves!"

He was now altogether a changed man; he looked almost young; his eyes danced, and he rubbed his big handstogether while he plied Frank with questions. In strange surroundings--that is, away from his Native Wilds, Jones hadbeen a silent man; it had been almost impossible to get anything out of him. But now I saw that I should come to knowthe real man. In a very few moments he had talked more than on all the desert trip, and what he said, added to the little Ihad already learned, put me in possession of some interesting information as to his buffalo.

Some years before he had conceived the idea of hybridizing buffalo with black Galloway cattle; and with thecharacteristic determination and energy of the man, he at once set about finding a suitable range. This was difficult,and took years of searching. At last the wild north rim of the Grand Canyon, a section unknown except to a few Indiansand mustang hunters, was settled upon. Then the gigantic task of transporting the herd of buffalo by rail fromMontana to Salt Lake was begun. The two hundred and ninety miles of desert lying between the home of the Mormonsand Buckskin Mountain was an obstacle almost insurmountable. The journey was undertaken and found even moretrying than had been expected. Buffalo after buffalo died on the way. Then Frank, Jones's right-hand man, put intoexecution a plan he had been thinking of--namely, to travel by night. It succeeded. The buffalo rested in the day andtraveled by easy stages by night, with the result that the big herd was transported to the ideal range.

Here, in an environment strange to their race, but peculiarly adaptable, they thrived and multiplied. The hybrid ofthe Galloway cow and buffalo proved a great success. Jones called the new species "Cattalo." The cattalo took thehardiness of the buffalo, and never required artificial food or shelter. He would face the desert storm or blizzard andstand stock still in his tracks until the weather cleared. He became quite domestic, could be easily handled, and grewexceedingly fat on very little provender. The folds of his stomach were so numerous that they digested even thehardest and flintiest of corn. He had fourteen ribs on each side, while domestic cattle had only thirteen; thus he couldendure rougher work and longer journeys to water. His fur was so dense and glossy that it equaled that of theunplucked beaver or otter, and was fully as valuable as the buffalo robe. And not to be overlooked by any means wasthe fact that his meat was delicious.

Jones had to hear every detail of all that had happened since his absence in the East, and he was particularlyinquisitive to learn all about the twenty cattalo calves. He called different buffalo by name; and designated the calvesby descriptive terms, such as "Whiteface" and "Crosspatch." He almost forgot to eat, and kept Frank too busy to get

anything into his own mouth. After supper he calmed down.

"How about your other man--Mr. Wallace, I think you said?" asked Frank.

"We expected to meet him at Grand Canyon Station, and then at Flagstaff. But he didn't show up. Either he backedout or missed us. I'm sorry; for when we get up on Buckskin, among the wild horses and cougars, we'll be likely to needhim."

"I reckon you'll need me, as well as Jim," said Frank dryly, with a twinkle in his eye. "The buffs are in good shapean' can get along without me for a while."

"That'll be fine. How about cougar sign on the mountain?"

"Plenty. I've got two spotted near Clark Spring. Comin' over two weeks ago I tracked them in the snow along thetrail for miles. We'll ooze over that way, as it's goin' toward the Siwash. The Siwash breaks of the Canyon--there's theplace for lions. I met a wild-horse wrangler not long back, an' he was tellin' me about Old Tom an' the colts he'd killedthis winter."

Naturally, I here expressed a desire to know more of Old Tom.

"He's the biggest cougar ever known of in these parts. His tracks are bigger than a horse's, an' have been seen onBuckskin for twelve years. This wrangler--his name is Clark--said he'd turned his saddle horse out to graze near camp,an' Old Tom sneaked in an' downed him. The lions over there are sure a bold bunch. Well, why shouldn't they be? Noone ever hunted them. You see, the mountain is hard to get at. But now you're here, if it's big cats you want we sure canfind them. Only be easy, be easy. You've all the time there is. An' any job on Buckskin will take time. We'll look thecalves over, an' you must ride the range to harden up. Then we'll ooze over toward Oak. I expect it'll be boggy, an' Ihope the snow melts soon."

"The snow hadn't melted on Greenland point," replied Jones. "We saw that with a glass from the El Tovar. Wewanted to cross that way, but Rust said Bright Angel Creek was breast high to a horse, and that creek is the trail."

"There's four feet of snow on Greenland," said Frank. "It was too early to come that way. There's only about threemonths in the year the Canyon can be crossed at Greenland."

"I want to get in the snow," returned Jones. "This bunch of long-eared canines I brought never smelled a liontrack. Hounds can't be trained quick without snow. You've got to see what they're trailing, or you can't break them."

Frank looked dubious. "'Pears to me we'll have trouble gettin' a lion without lion dogs. It takes a long time to breaka hound off of deer, once he's chased them. Buckskin is full of deer, wolves, coyotes, and there's the wild horses. Wecouldn't go a hundred feet without crossin' trails."

"How's the hound you and Jim fetched in las' year? Has he got a good nose? Here he is--I like his head. Comehere, Bowser--what's his name?"

"Jim named him Sounder, because he sure has a voice. It's great to hear him on a trail. Sounder has a nose thatcan't be fooled, an' he'll trail anythin'; but I don't know if he ever got up a lion."

Sounder wagged his bushy tail and looked up affectionately at Frank. He had a fine head, great brown eyes, verylong ears and curly brownish-black hair. He was not demonstrative, looked rather askance at Jones, and avoided theother dogs.

"That dog will make a great lion-chaser," said Jones, decisively, after his study of Sounder. "He and Moze willkeep us busy, once they learn we want lions."

"I don't believe any dog-trainer could teach them short of six months," replied Frank. "Sounder is no springchicken; an' that black and dirty white cross between a cayuse an' a barb-wire fence is an old dog. You can't teach olddogs new tricks."

Jones smiled mysteriously, a smile of conscious superiority, but said nothing.

"We'll shore hev a storm to-morrow," said Jim, relinquishing his pipe long enough to speak. He had been silent,and now his meditative gaze was on the west, through the cabin window, where a dull afterglow faded under the heavy

laden clouds of night and left the horizon dark.

I was very tired when I lay down, but so full of excitement that sleep did not soon visit my eyelids. The talk aboutbuffalo, wild-horse hunters, lions and dogs, the prospect of hard riding and unusual adventure; the vision of Old Tomthat had already begun to haunt me, filled my mind with pictures and fancies. The other fellows dropped off to sleep,and quiet reigned. Suddenly a succession of queer, sharp barks came from the plain, close to the cabin. Coyotes werepaying us a call, and judging from the chorus of yelps and howls from our dogs, it was not a welcome visit. Above themedley rose one big, deep, full voice that I knew at once belonged to Sounder. Then all was quiet again. Sleepgradually benumbed my senses. Vague phrases dreamily drifted to and fro in my mind: "Jones's wild range--Old Tom--Sounder--great name--great voice--Sounder! Sounder! Sounder--"

Next morning I could hardly crawl out of my sleeping-bag. My bones ached, my muscles protested excruciatingly,my lips burned and bled, and the cold I had contracted on the desert clung to me. A good brisk walk round the corrals,and then breakfast, made me feel better.

"Of course you can ride?" queried Frank.

My answer was not given from an overwhelming desire to be truthful. Frank frowned a little, as it wondering how aman could have the nerve to start out on a jaunt with Buffalo Jones without being a good horseman. To be unable tostick on the back of a wild mustang, or a cayuse, was an unpardonable sin in Arizona. My frank admission was maderelatively, with my mind on what cowboys held as a standard of horsemanship.

The mount Frank trotted out of the corral for me was a pure white, beautiful mustang, nervous, sensitive,quivering. I watched Frank put on the saddle, and when he called me I did not fail to catch a covert twinkle in his merrybrown eyes. Looking away toward Buckskin Mountain, which was coincidentally in the direction of home, I said tomyself: "This may be where you get on, but most certainly it is where you get off!"

Jones was already riding far beyond the corral, as I could see by a cloud of dust; and I set off after him, with thepainful consciousness that I must have looked to Frank and Jim much as Central Park equestrians had often looked tome. Frank shouted after me that he would catch up with us out on the range. I was not in any great hurry to overtakeJones, but evidently my horse's inclinations differed from mine; at any rate, he made the dust fly, and jumped the littlesage bushes.

Jones, who had tarried to inspect one of the pools--formed of running water from the corrals--greeted me as I cameup with this cheerful observation.

"What in thunder did Frank give you that white nag for? The buffalo hate white horses--anything white. They'reliable to stampede off the range, or chase you into the canyon."

I replied grimly that, as it was certain something was going to happen, the particular circumstance might as wellcome off quickly.

We rode over the rolling plain with a cool, bracing breeze in our faces. The sky was dull and mottled with abeautiful cloud effect that presaged wind. As we trotted along Jones pointed out to me and descanted upon thenutritive value of three different kinds of grass, one of which he called the Buffalo Pea, noteworthy for a beautiful blueblossom. Soon we passed out of sight of the cabin, and could see only the billowy plain, the red tips of the stony wall,and the black-fringed crest of Buckskin. After riding a while we made out some cattle, a few of which were on the range,browsing in the lee of a ridge. No sooner had I marked them than Jones let out another Comanche yell.

"Wolf!" he yelled; and spurring his big bay, he was off like the wind.

A single glance showed me several cows running as if bewildered, and near them a big white wolf pulling down acalf. Another white wolf stood not far off. My horse jumped as if he had been shot; and the realization darted upon methat here was where the certain something began. Spot--the mustang had one black spot in his pure white--snorted likeI imagined a blooded horse might, under dire insult. Jones's bay had gotten about a hundred paces the start. I lived tolearn that Spot hated to be left behind; moreover, he would not be left behind; he was the swiftest horse on the range,and proud of the distinction. I cast one unmentionable word on the breeze toward the cabin and Frank, then put mindand muscle to the sore task of remaining with Spot. Jones was born on a saddle, and had been taking his meals in asaddle for about sixty-three years, and the bay horse could run. Run is not a felicitous word--he flew. And I wasrendered mentally deranged for the moment to see that hundred paces between the bay and Spot materially lessen atevery jump. Spot lengthened out, seemed to go down near the ground, and cut the air like a high-geared auto. If I had

not heard the fast rhythmic beat of his hoofs, and had not bounced high into the air at every jump, I would have beensure I was riding a bird. I tried to stop him. As well might I have tried to pull in the Lusitania with a thread. Spot was outto overhaul that bay, and in spite of me, he was doing it. The wind rushed into my face and sang in my ears. Jonesseemed the nucleus of a sort of haze, and it grew larger and larger. Presently he became clearly defined in my sight; theviolent commotion under me subsided; I once more felt the saddle, and then I realized that Spot had been content tostop alongside of Jones, tossing his head and champing his bit.

"Well, by George! I didn't know you were in the stretch," cried my companion. "That was a fine little brush. Wemust have come several miles. I'd have killed those wolves if I'd brought a gun. The big one that had the calf was a boldbrute. He never let go until I was within fifty feet of him. Then I almost rode him down. I don't think the calf was muchhurt. But those blood-thirsty devils will return, and like as not get the calf. That's the worst of cattle raising. Now, takethe buffalo. Do you suppose those wolves could have gotten a buffalo calf out from under the mother? Never. Neithercould a whole band of wolves. Buffalo stick close together, and the little ones do not stray. When danger threatens, theherd closes in and faces it and fights. That is what is grand about the buffalo and what made them once roam theprairies in countless, endless droves."

From the highest elevation in that part of the range we viewed the surrounding ridges, flats and hollows,searching for the buffalo. At length we spied a cloud of dust rising from behind an undulating mound, then big blackdots hove in sight.

"Frank has rounded up the herd, and is driving it this way. We'll wait," said Jones.

Though the buffalo appeared to be moving fast, a long time elapsed before they reached the foot of our outlook.They lumbered along in a compact mass, so dense that I could not count them, but I estimated the number at seventy-five. Frank was riding zigzag behind them, swinging his lariat and yelling. When he espied us he reined in his horse andwaited. Then the herd slowed down, halted and began browsing.

"Look at the cattalo calves," cried Jones, in ecstatic tones. "See how shy they are, how close they stick to theirmothers."

The little dark-brown fellows were plainly frightened. I made several unsuccessful attempts to photograph them,and gave it up when Jones told me not to ride too close and that it would be better to wait till we had them in the corral.

He took my camera and instructed me to go on ahead, in the rear of the herd. I heard the click of the instrument ashe snapped a picture, and then suddenly heard him shout in alarm: "Look out! look out! pull your horse!"

Thundering hoof-beats pounding the earth accompanied his words. I saw a big bull, with head down, tail raised,charging my horse. He answered Frank's yell of command with a furious grunt. I was paralyzed at the wonderfully swiftaction of the shaggy brute, and I sat helpless. Spot wheeled as if he were on a pivot and plunged out of the way with acelerity that was astounding. The buffalo stopped, pawed the ground, and angrily tossed his huge head. Frank rode upto him, yelled, and struck him with the lariat, whereupon he gave another toss of his horns, and then returned to theherd.

"It was that darned white nag," said Jones. "Frank, it was wrong to put an inexperienced man on Spot. For thatmatter, the horse should never be allowed to go near the buffalo."

"Spot knows the buffs; they'd never get to him," replied Frank. But the usual spirit was absent from his voice, andhe glanced at me soberly. I knew I had turned white, for I felt the peculiar cold sensation on my face.

"Now, look at that, will you?" cried Jones. "I don't like the looks of that."

He pointed to the herd. They stopped browsing, and were uneasily shifting to and fro. The bull lifted his head; theothers slowly grouped together.

"Storm! Sandstorm!" exclaimed Jones, pointing desert-ward. Dark yellow clouds like smoke were rolling, sweeping,bearing down upon us. They expanded, blossoming out like gigantic roses, and whirled and merged into one another,all the time rolling on and blotting out the light.

"We've got to run. That storm may last two days," yelled Frank to me. "We've had some bad ones lately. Give yourhorse free rein, and cover your face."

A roar, resembling an approaching storm at sea, came on puffs of wind, as the horses got into their stride. Long

streaks of dust whipped up in different places; the silver-white grass bent to the ground; round bunches of sage wentrolling before us. The puffs grew longer, steadier, harder. Then a shrieking blast howled on our trail, seeming to swoopdown on us with a yellow, blinding pall. I shut my eyes and covered my face with a handkerchief. The sand blew sothick that it filled my gloves, pebbles struck me hard enough to sting through my coat.

Fortunately, Spot kept to an easy swinging lope, which was the most comfortable motion for me. But I began toget numb, and could hardly stick on the saddle. Almost before I had dared to hope, Spot stopped. Uncovering my face,I saw Jim in the doorway of the lee side of the cabin. The yellow, streaky, whistling clouds of sand split on the cabinand passed on, leaving a small, dusty space of light.

"Shore Spot do hate to be beat," yelled Jim, as he helped me off. I stumbled into the cabin and fell upon a buffalorobe and lay there absolutely spent. Jones and Frank came in a few minutes apart, each anathematizing the gritty,powdery sand.

All day the desert storm raged and roared. The dust sifted through the numerous cracks in the cabin burdened ourclothes, spoiled our food and blinded our eyes. Wind, snow, sleet and rainstorms are discomforting enough undertrying circumstances; but all combined, they are nothing to the choking stinging, blinding sandstorm.

"Shore it'll let up by sundown," averred Jim. And sure enough the roar died away about five o'clock, the windabated and the sand settled.

Just before supper, a knock sounded heavily o the cabin door. Jim opened it to admit one of Emmett's sons and avery tall man whom none of us knew. He was a sand-man. All that was not sand seemed a space or two of corduroy, abig bone-handled knife, a prominent square jaw and bronze cheek and flashing eyes.

"Get down--get down, an' come in, stranger, said Frank cordially.

"How do you do, sir," said Jones.

"Colonel Jones, I've been on your trail for twelve days," announced the stranger, with a grim smile. The sandstreamed off his coat in little white streak. Jones appeared to be casting about in his mind.

"I'm Grant Wallace," continued the newcomer. "I missed you at the El Tovar, at Williams and at Flagstaff, where Iwas one day behind. Was half a day late at the Little Colorado, saw your train cross Moncaupie Wash, and missed youbecause of the sandstorm there. Saw you from the other side of the Big Colorado as you rode out from Emmett's alongthe red wall. And here I am. We've never met till now, which obviously isn't my fault."

The Colonel and I fell upon Wallace's neck. Frank manifested his usual alert excitation, and said: "Well, I guess hewon't hang fire on a long cougar chase." And Jim--slow, careful Jim, dropped a plate with the exclamation: "Shore it dobeat hell!" The hounds sniffed round Wallace, and welcomed him with vigorous tails.

Supper that night, even if we did grind sand with our teeth, was a joyous occasion. The biscuits were flaky andlight; the bacon fragrant and crisp. I produced a jar of blackberry jam, which by subtle cunning I had been able tosecrete from the Mormons on that dry desert ride, and it was greeted with acclamations of pleasure. Wallace, divestedof his sand guise, beamed with the gratification of a hungry man once more in the presence of friends and food. Hemade large cavities in Jim's great pot of potato stew, and caused biscuits to vanish in a way that would not haveshamed a Hindoo magician. The Grand Canyon he dug in my jar of jam, however, could not have been accomplished bylegerdemain.

Talk became animated on dogs, cougars, horses and buffalo. Jones told of our experience out on the range, andconcluded with some salient remarks.

"A tame wild animal is the most dangerous of beasts. My old friend, Dick Rock, a great hunter and guide out ofIdaho, laughed at my advice, and got killed by one of his three-year-old bulls. I told him they knew him just wellenough to kill him, and they did. My friend, A. H. Cole, of Oxford, Nebraska, tried to rope a Weetah that was too tameto be safe, and the bull killed him. Same with General Bull, a member of the Kansas Legislature, and two cowboys whowent into a corral to tie up a tame elk at the wrong time. I pleaded with them not to undertake it. They had not studiedanimals as I had. That tame elk killed all of them. He had to be shot in order to get General Bull off his great antlers. Yousee, a wild animal must learn to respect a man. The way I used to teach the Yellowstone Park bears to be respectful andsafe neighbors was to rope them around the front paw, swing them up on a tree clear of the ground, and whip them witha long pole. It was a dangerous business, and looks cruel, but it is the only way I could find to make the bears good.

You see, they eat scraps around the hotels and get so tame they will steal everything but red-hot stoves, and will cuffthe life out of those who try to shoo them off. But after a bear mother has had a licking, she not only becomes a goodbear for the rest of her life, but she tells all her cubs about it with a good smack of her paw, for emphasis, and teachesthem to respect peaceable citizens generation after generation.

"One of the hardest jobs I ever tackled was that of supplying the buffalo for Bronx Park. I rounded up amagnificent 'king' buffalo bull, belligerent enough to fight a battleship. When I rode after him the cowmen said I was asgood as killed. I made a lance by driving a nail into the end of a short pole and sharpening it. After he had chased me, Iwheeled my broncho, and hurled the lance into his back, ripping a wound as long as my hand. That put the fear ofProvidence into him and took the fight all out of him. I drove him uphill and down, and across canyons at a dead run foreight miles single handed, and loaded him on a freight car; but he came near getting me once or twice, and only quickbroncho work and lance play saved me.

"In the Yellowstone Park all our buffaloes have become docile, excepting the huge bull which led them. TheIndians call the buffalo leader the 'Weetah,' the master of the herd. It was sure death to go near this one. So I shipped inanother Weetah, hoping that he might whip some of the fight out of old Manitou, the Mighty. They came together headon, like a railway collision, and ripped up over a square mile of landscape, fighting till night came on, and then on intothe night.

"I jumped into the field with them, chasing them with my biograph, getting a series of moving pictures of thatbullfight which was sure the real thing. It was a ticklish thing to do, though knowing that neither bull dared take hiseyes off his adversary for a second, I felt reasonably safe. The old Weetah beat the new champion out that night, butthe next morning they were at it again, and the new buffalo finally whipped the old one into submission. Since then hisspirit has remained broken, and even a child can approach him safely--but the new Weetah is in turn a holy terror.

"To handle buffalo, elk and bear, you must get into sympathy with their methods of reasoning. No tenderfootstands any show, even with the tame animals of the Yellowstone."

The old buffalo hunter's lips were no longer locked. One after another he told reminiscences of his eventful life, ina simple manner; yet so vivid and gripping were the unvarnished details that I was spellbound.

"Considering what appears the impossibility of capturing a full-grown buffalo, how did you earn the name ofpreserver of the American bison?" inquired Wallace.

"It took years to learn how, and ten more to capture the fifty-eight that I was able to keep. I tried every plan underthe sun. I roped hundreds, of all sizes and ages. They would not live in captivity. If they could not find an embankmentover which to break their necks, they would crush their skulls on stones. Failing any means like that, they would liedown, will themselves to die, and die. Think of a savage wild nature that could will its heart to cease beating! But it'strue. Finally I found I could keep only calves under three months of age. But to capture them so young entailed timeand patience. For the buffalo fight for their young, and when I say fight, I mean till they drop. I almost always had to goalone, because I could neither coax nor hire any one to undertake it with me. Sometimes I would be weeks getting onecalf. One day I captured eight--eight little buffalo calves! Never will I forget that day as long as I live!"

"Tell us about it," I suggested, in a matter of fact, round-the-campfire voice. Had the silent plainsman ever told acomplete and full story of his adventures? I doubted it. He was not the man to eulogize himself.

A short silence ensued. The cabin was snug and warm; the ruddy embers glowed; one of Jim's pots steamedmusically and fragrantly. The hounds lay curled in the cozy chimney corner.

Jones began to talk again, simply and unaffectedly, of his famous exploit; and as he went on so modestly, passinglightly over features we recognized as wonderful, I allowed the fire of my imagination to fuse for myself all the toil,patience, endurance, skill, herculean strength and marvelous courage and unfathomable passion which he slighted inhis narrative.

CHAPTER 3.

THE LAST HERD

Over gray No-Man's-Land stole down the shadows of night. The undulating prairie shaded dark to the westernhorizon, rimmed with a fading streak of light. Tall figures, silhouetted sharply against the last golden glow of sunset,marked the rounded crest of a grassy knoll.

"Wild hunter!" cried a voice in sullen rage, "buffalo or no, we halt here. Did Adams and I hire to cross the StakedPlains? Two weeks in No-Man's-Land, and now we're facing the sand! We've one keg of water, yet you want to keepon. Why, man, you're crazy! You didn't tell us you wanted buffalo alive. And here you've got us looking death in theeye!"

In the grim silence that ensued the two men unhitched the team from the long, light wagon, while the buffalohunter staked out his wiry, lithe-limbed racehorses. Soon a fluttering blaze threw a circle of light, which shone on theagitated face of Rude and Adams, and the cold, iron-set visage of their brawny leader.

"It's this way," began Jones, in slow, cool voice; "I engaged you fellows, and you promised to stick by me. We'vehad no luck. But I've finally found sign--old sign, I'll admit the buffalo I'm looking for--the last herd on the plains. Fortwo years I've been hunting this herd. So have other hunters. Millions of buffalo have been killed and left to rot. Soonthis herd will be gone, and then the only buffalo in the world will be those I have given ten years of the hardest work incapturing. This is the last herd, I say, and my last chance to capture a calf or two. Do you imagine I'd quit? You fellowsgo back if you want, but I keep on."

"We can't go back. We're lost. We'll have to go with you. But, man, thirst is not the only risk we run. This isComanche country. And if that herd is in here the Indians have it spotted."

"That worries me some," replied the plainsman, "but we'll keep on it."

They slept. The night wind swished the grasses; dark storm clouds blotted out the northern stars; the prairiewolves mourned dismally.

Day broke cold, wan, threatening, under a leaden sky. The hunters traveled thirty miles by noon, and halted in ahollow where a stream flowed in wet season. Cottonwood trees were bursting into green; thickets of prickly thorn,dense and matted, showed bright spring buds.

"What is it?" suddenly whispered Rude.

The plainsman lay in strained posture, his ear against the ground.

"Hide the wagon and horses in the clump of cottonwoods," he ordered, tersely. Springing to his feet, he ran to thetop of the knoll above the hollow, where he again placed his ear to the ground.

Jones's practiced ear had detected the quavering rumble of far-away, thundering hoofs. He searched the widewaste of plain with his powerful glass. To the southwest, miles distant, a cloud of dust mushroomed skyward. "Notbuffalo," he muttered, "maybe wild horses." He watched and waited. The yellow cloud rolled forward, enlarging,spreading out, and drove before it a darkly indistinct, moving mass. As soon as he had one good look at this he ranback to his comrades.

"Stampede! Wild horses! Indians! Look to your rifles and hide!"

Wordless and pale, the men examined their Sharps, and made ready to follow Jones. He slipped into the thornybrake and, flat on his stomach, wormed his way like a snake far into the thickly interlaced web of branches. Rude andAdams crawled after him. Words were superfluous. Quiet, breathless, with beating hearts, the hunters pressed close tothe dry grass. A long, low, steady rumble filled the air, and increased in volume till it became a roar. Moments, endlessmoments, passed. The roar filled out like a flood slowly released from its confines to sweep down with the sound ofdoom. The ground began to tremble and quake: the light faded; the smell of dust pervaded the thicket, then acontinuous streaming roar, deafening as persistent roll of thunder, pervaded the hiding place. The stampeding horseshad split round the hollow. The roar lessened. Swiftly as a departing snow-squall rushing on through the pines, thethunderous thud and tramp of hoofs died away.

The trained horses hidden in the cottonwoods never stirred. "Lie low! lie low!" breathed the plainsman to hiscompanions.

Throb of hoofs again became audible, not loud and madly pounding as those that had passed, but low, muffled,rhythmic. Jones's sharp eye, through a peephole in the thicket, saw a cream-colored mustang bob over the knoll,

carrying an Indian. Another and another, then a swiftly following, close-packed throng appeared. Bright red feathersand white gleamed; weapons glinted; gaunt, bronzed savage leaned forward on racy, slender mustangs.

The plainsman shrank closer to the ground. "Apache!" he exclaimed to himself, and gripped his rifle. The bandgalloped down to the hollow, and slowing up, piled single file over the bank. The leader, a short, squat chief, plungedinto the brake not twenty yards from the hidden men. Jones recognized the cream mustang; he knew the somber,sinister, broad face. It belonged to the Red Chief of the Apaches.

"Geronimo!" murmured the plainsman through his teeth.

Well for the Apache that no falcon savage eye discovered aught strange in the little hollow! One look at the sandof the stream bed would have cost him his life. But the Indians crossed the thicket too far up; they cantered up theslope and disappeared. The hoof-beats softened and ceased.

"Gone?" whispered Rude.

"Gone. But wait," whispered Jones. He knew the savage nature, and he knew how to wait. After a long time, hecautiously crawled out of the thicket and searched the surroundings with a plainsman's eye. He climbed the slope andsaw the clouds of dust, the near one small, the far one large, which told him all he needed to know.

"Comanches?" queried Adams, with a quaver in his voice. He was new to the plains.

"Likely," said Jones, who thought it best not to tell all he knew. Then he added to himself: "We've no time to lose.There's water back here somewhere. The Indians have spotted the buffalo, and were running the horses away from thewater."

The three got under way again, proceeding carefully, so as not to raise the dust, and headed due southwest.Scantier and scantier grew the grass; the hollows were washes of sand; steely gray dunes, like long, flat, ocean swells,ribbed the prairie. The gray day declined. Late into the purple night they traveled, then camped without fire.

In the gray morning Jones climbed a high ride and scanned the southwest. Low dun-colored sandhills waved fromhim down and down, in slow, deceptive descent. A solitary and remote waste reached out into gray infinitude. A palelake, gray as the rest of that gray expanse, glimmered in the distance.

"Mirage!" he muttered, focusing his glass, which only magnified all under the dead gray, steely sky. "Water mustbe somewhere; but can that be it? It's too pale and elusive to be real. No life--a blasted, staked plain! Hello!"

A thin, black, wavering line of wild fowl, moving in beautiful, rapid flight, crossed the line of his vision. "Geeseflying north, and low. There's water here," he said. He followed the flock with his glass, saw them circle over the lake,and vanish in the gray sheen.

"It's water." He hurried back to camp. His haggard and worn companions scorned his discovery. Adams sidingwith Rude, who knew the plains, said: "Mirage! the lure of the desert!" Yet dominated by a force too powerful for themto resist, they followed the buffalo-hunter. All day the gleaming lake beckoned them onward, and seemed to recede. Allday the drab clouds scudded before the cold north wind. In the gray twilight, the lake suddenly lay before them, as if ithad opened at their feet. The men rejoiced, the horses lifted their noses and sniffed the damp air.

The whinnies of the horses, the clank of harness, and splash of water, the whirl of ducks did not blur out ofJones's keen ear a sound that made him jump. It was the thump of hoofs, in a familiar beat, beat, beat. He saw a shadowmoving up a ridge. Soon, outlined black against the yet light sky, a lone buffalo cow stood like a statue. A moment sheheld toward the lake, studying the danger, then went out of sight over the ridge.

Jones spurred his horse up the ascent, which was rather long and steep, but he mounted the summit in time to seethe cow join eight huge, shaggy buffalo. The hunter reined in his horse, and standing high in his stirrups, held his hatat arms' length over his head. So he thrilled to a moment he had sought for two years. The last herd of American bisonwas near at hand. The cow would not venture far from the main herd; the eight stragglers were the old broken-downbulls that had been expelled, at this season, from the herd by younger and more vigorous bulls. The old monarchs sawthe hunter at the same time his eyes were gladdened by sight of them, and lumbered away after the cow, to disappear inthe gathering darkness. Frightened buffalo always make straight for their fellows; and this knowledge contented Jonesto return to the lake, well satisfied that the herd would not be far away in the morning, within easy striking distance bydaylight.

At dark the storm which had threatened for days, broke in a fury of rain, sleet and hail. The hunters stretched apiece of canvas over the wheels of the north side of the wagon, and wet and shivering, crawled under it to theirblankets. During the night the storm raged with unabated strength.

Dawn, forbidding and raw, lightened to the whistle of the sleety gusts. Fire was out of the question. Chary ofweight, the hunters had carried no wood, and the buffalo chips they used for fuel were lumps of ice. Grumbling, Adamsand Rude ate a cold breakfast, while Jones, munching a biscuit, faced the biting blast from the crest of the ridge. Themiddle of the plain below held a ragged, circular mass, as still as stone. It was the buffalo herd, with every shaggy headto the storm. So they would stand, never budging from their tracks, till the blizzard of sleet was over.

Jones, though eager and impatient, restrained himself, for it was unwise to begin operations in the storm. Therewas nothing to do but wait. Ill fared the hunters that day. Food had to be eaten uncooked. The long hours dragged bywith the little group huddled under icy blankets. When darkness fell, the sleet changed to drizzling rain. This blew overat midnight, and a colder wind, penetrating to the very marrow of the sleepless men, made their condition worse. In theafter part of the night, the wolves howled mournfully.

With a gray, misty light appearing in the east, Jones threw off his stiff, ice-incased blanket, and crawled out. Agaunt gray wolf, the color of the day and the sand and the lake, sneaked away, looking back. While moving andthreshing about to warm his frozen blood, Jones munched another biscuit. Five men crawled from under the wagon,and made an unfruitful search for the whisky. Fearing it, Jones had thrown the bottle away. The men cursed. Thepatient horses drooped sadly, and shivered in the lee of the improvised tent. Jones kicked the inch-thick casing of icefrom his saddle. Kentuck, his racer, had been spared on the whole trip for this day's work. The thoroughbred was cold,but as Jones threw the saddle over him, he showed that he knew the chase ahead, and was eager to be off. At last, afterrepeated efforts with his benumbed fingers, Jones got the girths tight. He tied a bunch of soft cords to the saddle andmounted.

"Follow as fast as you can," he called to his surly men. "The buffs will run north against the wind. This is the rightdirection for us; we'll soon leave the sand. Stick to my trail and come a-humming."

From the ridge he met the red sun, rising bright, and a keen northeasterly wind that lashed like a whip. As he hadanticipated, his quarry had moved northward. Kentuck let out into a swinging stride, which in an hour had the lopingherd in sight. Every jump now took him upon higher ground, where the sand failed, and the grass grew thicker andbegan to bend under the wind.

In the teeth of the nipping gale Jones slipped close upon the herd without alarming even a cow. More than ahundred little reddish-black calves leisurely loped in the rear. Kentuck, keen to his work, crept on like a wolf, and thehunter's great fist clenched the coiled lasso. Before him expanded a boundless plain. A situation long cherished anddreamed of had become a reality. Kentuck, fresh and strong, was good for all day. Jones gloated over the little red bullsand heifers, as a miser gloats over gold and jewels. Never before had he caught more than two in one day, and often ithad taken days to capture one. This was the last herd, this the last opportunity toward perpetuating a grand race ofbeasts. And with born instinct he saw ahead the day of his life.

At a touch, Kentuck closed in, and the buffalo, seeing him, stampeded into the heaving roll so well known to thehunter. Racing on the right flank of the herd, Jones selected a tawny heifer and shot the lariat after her. It fell true, butbeing stiff and kinky from the sleet, failed to tighten, and the quick calf leaped through the loop to freedom.

Undismayed the pursuer quickly recovered his rope. Again he whirled and sent the loop. Again it circled true, andfailed to close; again the agile heifer bounded through it. Jones whipped the air with the stubborn rope. To lose achance like that was worse than boy's work.

The third whirl, running a smaller loop, tightened the coil round the frightened calf just back of its ears. A pull onthe bridle brought Kentuck to a halt in his tracks, and the baby buffalo rolled over and over in the grass. Jonesbounced from his seat and jerked loose a couple of the soft cords. In a twinkling; his big knee crushed down on thecalf, and his big hands bound it helpless.

Kentuck neighed. Jones saw his black ears go up. Danger threatened. For a moment the hunter's blood turnedchill, not from fear, for he never felt fear, but because he thought the Indians were returning to ruin his work. His eyeswept the plain. Only the gray forms of wolves flitted through the grass, here, there, all about him. Wolves! They wereas fatal to his enterprise as savages. A trooping pack of prairie wolves had fallen in with the herd and hung close onthe trail, trying to cut a calf away from its mother. The gray brutes boldly trotted to within a few yards of him, and slylylooked at him, with pale, fiery eyes. They had already scented his captive. Precious time flew by; the situation, critical

and baffling, had never before been met by him. There lay his little calf tied fast, and to the north ran many others, someof which he must--he would have. To think quickly had meant the solving of many a plainsman's problem. Should hestay with his prize to save it, or leave it to be devoured?

"Ha! you old gray devils!" he yelled, shaking his fist at the wolves. "I know a trick or two." Slipping his hatbetween the legs of the calf, he fastened it securely. This done, he vaulted on Kentuck, and was off with never abackward glance. Certain it was that the wolves would not touch anything, alive or dead, that bore the scent of ahuman being.

The bison scoured away a long half-mile in the lead, sailing northward like a cloud-shadow over the plain.Kentuck, mettlesome, over-eager, would have run himself out in short order, but the wary hunter, strong to restrain aswell as impel, with the long day in his mind, kept the steed in his easy stride, which, springy and stretching, overhauledthe herd in the course of several miles.

A dash, a swirl, a shock, a leap, horse and hunter working in perfect accord, and a fine big calf, bellowing lustily,struggled desperately for freedom under the remorseless knee. The big hands toyed with him; and then, secure in thedouble knots, the calf lay still, sticking out his tongue and rolling his eyes, with the coat of the hunter tucked under hisbonds to keep away the wolves.

The race had but begun; the horse had but warmed to his work; the hunter had but tasted of sweet triumph.Another hopeful of a buffalo mother, negligent in danger, truant from his brothers, stumbled and fell in the enmeshingloop. The hunter's vest, slipped over the calf's neck, served as danger signal to the wolves. Before the lumberingbuffalo missed their loss, another red and black baby kicked helplessly on the grass and sent up vain, weak calls, andat last lay still, with the hunter's boot tied to his cords.

Four! Jones counted them aloud, add in his mind, and kept on. Fast, hard work, covering upward of fifteen miles,had begun to tell on herd, horse and man, and all slowed down to the call for strength. The fifth time Jones closed in onhis game, he encountered different circumstances such as called forth his cunning.

The herd had opened up; the mothers had fallen back to the rear; the calves hung almost out of sight under theshaggy sides of protectors. To try them out Jones darted close and threw his lasso. It struck a cow. With activityincredible in such a huge beast, she lunged at him. Kentuck, expecting just such a move, wheeled to safety. This duel,ineffectual on both sides, kept up for a while, and all the time, man and herd were jogging rapidly to the north.

Jones could not let well enough alone; he acknowledged this even as he swore he must have five. Emboldened byhis marvelous luck, and yielding headlong to the passion within, he threw caution to the winds. A lame old cow with ared calf caught his eye; in he spurred his willing horse and slung his rope. It stung the haunch of the mother. The madgrunt she vented was no quicker than the velocity with which she plunged and reared. Jones had but time to swing hisleg over the saddle when the hoofs beat down. Kentuck rolled on the plain, flinging his rider from him. The infuriatedbuffalo lowered her head for the fatal charge on the horse, when the plainsman, jerking out his heavy Colts, shot herdead in her tracks.

Kentuck got to his feet unhurt, and stood his ground, quivering but ready, showing his steadfast courage. Heshowed more, for his ears lay back, and his eyes had the gleam of the animal that strikes back.

The calf ran round its mother. Jones lassoed it, and tied it down, being compelled to cut a piece from his lasso, asthe cords on the saddle had given out. He left his other boot with baby number five. The still heaving, smoking body ofthe victim called forth the stern, intrepid hunter's pity for a moment. Spill of blood he had not wanted. But he had notbeen able to avoid it; and mounting again with close-shut jaw and smoldering eye, he galloped to the north.

Kentuck snorted; the pursuing wolves shied off in the grass; the pale sun began to slant westward. The cold ironstirrups froze and cut the hunter's bootless feet.

When once more he came hounding the buffalo, they were considerably winded. Short-tufted tails, raised stiffly,gave warning. Snorts, like puffs of escaping steam, and deep grunts from cavernous chests evinced anger andimpatience that might, at any moment, bring the herd to a defiant stand.

He whizzed the shortened noose over the head of a calf that was laboring painfully to keep up, and had slippeddown, when a mighty grunt told him of peril. Never looking to see whence it came, he sprang into the saddle. FieryKentuck jumped into action, then hauled up with a shock that almost threw himself and rider. The lasso, fast to thehorse, and its loop end round the calf, had caused the sudden check.

A maddened cow bore down on Kentuck. The gallant horse straightened in a jump, but dragging the calf pulledhim in a circle, and in another moment he was running round and round the howling, kicking pivot. Then ensued aterrible race, with horse and bison describing a twenty-foot circle. Bang! Bang! The hunter fired two shots, and heardthe spats of the bullets. But they only augmented the frenzy of the beast. Faster Kentuck flew, snorting in terror; closerdrew the dusty, bouncing pursuer; the calf spun like a top; the lasso strung tighter than wire. Jones strained to loosenthe fastening, but in vain. He swore at his carelessness in dropping his knife by the last calf he had tied. He thought ofshooting the rope, yet dared not risk the shot. A hollow sound turned him again, with the Colts leveled. Bang! Dustflew from the ground beyond the bison.

The two charges left in the gun were all that stood between him and eternity. With a desperate display of strengthJones threw his weight in a backward pull, and hauled Kentuck up. Then he leaned far back in the saddle, and shovedthe Colts out beyond the horse's flank. Down went the broad head, with its black, glistening horns. Bang! She slidforward with a crash, plowing the ground with hoofs and nose--spouted blood, uttered a hoarse cry, kicked and died.

Kentuck, for once completely terrorized, reared and plunged from the cow, dragging the calf. Stern command andiron arm forced him to a standstill. The calf, nearly strangled, recovered when the noose was slipped, and moaned afeeble protest against life and captivity. The remainder of Jones's lasso went to bind number six, and one of his sockswent to serve as reminder to the persistent wolves.

"Six! On! On! Kentuck! On!" Weakening, but unconscious of it, with bloody hands and feet, without lasso, andwith only one charge in his revolver, hatless, coatless, vestless, bootless, the wild hunter urged on the noble horse.The herd had gained miles in the interval of the fight. Game to the backbone, Kentuck lengthened out to overhaul it,and slowly the rolling gap lessened and lessened. A long hour thumped away, with the rumble growing nearer.

Once again the lagging calves dotted the grassy plain before the hunter. He dashed beside a burly calf, grasped itstail, stopped his horse, and jumped. The calf went down with him, and did not come up. The knotted, blood-stainedhands, like claws of steel, bound the hind legs close and fast with a leathern belt, and left between them a torn andbloody sock.

"Seven! On! Old Faithfull! We MUST have another! the last! This is your day."

The blood that flecked the hunter was not all his own.

The sun slanted westwardly toward the purpling horizon; the grassy plain gleamed like a ruffled sea of glass; thegray wolves loped on.

When next the hunter came within sight of the herd, over a wavy ridge, changes in its shape and movement methis gaze. The calves were almost done; they could run no more; their mothers faced the south, and trotted slowly toand fro; the bulls were grunting, herding, piling close. It looked as if the herd meant to stand and fight.

This mattered little to the hunter who had captured seven calves since dawn. The first limping calf he reached triedto elude the grasping hand and failed. Kentuck had been trained to wheel to the right or left, in whichever way his riderleaned; and as Jones bent over and caught an upraised tail, the horse turned to strike the calf with both front hoofs.The calf rolled; the horse plunged down; the rider sped beyond to the dust. Though the calf was tired, he still couldbellow, and he filled the air with robust bawls.

Jones all at once saw twenty or more buffalo dash in at him with fast, twinkling, short legs. With the thought of it,he was in the air to the saddle. As the black, round mounds charged from every direction, Kentuck let out with all therewas left in him. He leaped and whirled, pitched and swerved, in a roaring, clashing, dusty melee. Beating hoofs threwthe turf, flying tails whipped the air, and everywhere were dusky, sharp-pointed heads, tossing low. Kentuck squeezedout unscathed. The mob of bison, bristling, turned to lumber after the main herd. Jones seized his opportunity and rodeafter them, yelling with all his might. He drove them so hard that soon the little fellows lagged paces behind. Only oneor two old cows straggled with the calves.

Then wheeling Kentuck, he cut between the herd and a calf, and rode it down. Bewildered, the tously little bullbellowed in great affright. The hunter seized the stiff tail, and calling to his horse, leaped off. But his strength was farspent and the buffalo, larger than his fellows, threshed about and jerked in terror. Jones threw it again and again. But itstruggled up, never once ceasing its loud demands for help. Finally the hunter tripped it up and fell upon it with hisknees.

Above the rumble of retreating hoofs, Jones heard the familiar short, quick, jarring pound on the turf. Kentuck

neighed his alarm and raced to the right. Bearing down on the hunter, hurtling through the air, was a giant furry mass,instinct with fierce life and power--a buffalo cow robbed of her young.

With his senses almost numb, barely able to pull and raise the Colt, the plainsman willed to live, and to keep hiscaptive. His leveled arm wavered like a leaf in a storm.

Bang! Fire, smoke, a shock, a jarring crash, and silence!

The calf stirred beneath him. He put out a hand to touch a warm, furry coat. The mother had fallen beside him.Lifting a heavy hoof, he laid it over the neck of the calf to serve as additional weight. He lay still and listened. Therumble of the herd died away in the distance.

The evening waned. Still the hunter lay quiet. From time to time the calf struggled and bellowed. Lank, gray wolvesappeared on all sides; they prowled about with hungry howls, and shoved black-tipped noses through the grass. Thesun sank, and the sky paled to opal blue. A star shone out, then another, and another. Over the prairie slanted the firstdark shadow of night.

Suddenly the hunter laid his ear to the ground, and listened. Faint beats, like throbs of a pulsing heart, shudderedfrom the soft turf. Stronger they grew, till the hunter raised his head. Dark forms approached; voices broke the silence;the creaking of a wagon scared away the wolves.

"This way!" shouted the hunter weakly.

"Ha! here he is. Hurt?" cried Rude, vaulting the wheel.

"Tie up this calf. How many--did you find?" The voice grew fainter.

"Seven--alive, and in good shape, and all your clothes."

But the last words fell on unconscious ears.

CHAPTER 4.

THE TRAIL

"Frank, what'll we do about horses?" asked Jones. "Jim'll want the bay, and of course you'll want to ride Spot. Therest of our nags will only do to pack the outfit."

"I've been thinkin'," replied the foreman. "You sure will need good mounts. Now it happens that a friend of mine isjust at this time at House Rock Valley, an outlyin' post of one of the big Utah ranches. He is gettin' in the horses off therange, an' he has some crackin' good ones. Let's ooze over there--it's only thirty miles--an' get some horses from him."

We were all eager to act upon Frank's suggestion. So plans were made for three of us to ride over and select ourmounts. Frank and Jim would follow with the pack train, and if all went well, on the following evening we would campunder the shadow of Buckskin.

Early next morning we were on our way. I tried to find a soft place on Old Baldy, one of Frank's pack horses. Hewas a horse that would not have raised up at the trumpet of doom. Nothing under the sun, Frank said, bothered OldBaldy but the operation of shoeing. We made the distance to the outpost by noon, and found Frank's friend a genialand obliging cowboy, who said we could have all the horses we wanted.

While Jones and Wallace strutted round the big corral, which was full of vicious, dusty, shaggy horses andmustangs, I sat high on the fence. I heard them talking about points and girth and stride, and a lot of terms that I couldnot understand. Wallace selected a heavy sorrel, and Jones a big bay; very like Jim's. I had observed, way over in thecorner of the corral, a bunch of cayuses, and among them a clean-limbed black horse. Edging round on the fence I got acloser view, and then cried out that I had found my horse. I jumped down and caught him, much to my surprise, for theother horses were wild, and had kicked viciously. The black was beautifully built, wide-chested and powerful, but notheavy. His coat glistened like sheeny black satin, and he had a white face and white feet and a long mane.

"I don't know about giving you Satan--that's his name," said the cowboy. "The foreman rides him often. He's thefastest, the best climber, and the best dispositioned horse on the range.

"But I guess I can let you have him," he continued, when he saw my disappointed face.

"By George!" exclaimed Jones. "You've got it on us this time."

"Would you like to trade?" asked Wallace, as his sorrel tried to bite him. "That black looks sort of fierce."

I led my prize out of the corral, up to the little cabin nearby, where I tied him, and proceeded to get acquainted aftera fashion of my own. Though not versed in horse-lore, I knew that half the battle was to win his confidence. Ismoothed his silky coat, and patted him, and then surreptitiously slipped a lump of sugar from my pocket. This sugar,which I had purloined in Flagstaff, and carried all the way across the desert, was somewhat disreputably soiled, andSatan sniffed at it disdainfully. Evidently he had never smelled or tasted sugar. I pressed it into his mouth. He munchedit, and then looked me over with some interest. I handed him another lump. He took it and rubbed his nose against me.Satan was mine!

Frank and Jim came along early in the afternoon. What with packing, changing saddles and shoeing the horses,we were all busy. Old Baldy would not be shod, so we let him off till a more opportune time. By four o'clock we wereriding toward the slopes of Buckskin, now only a few miles away, standing up higher and darker.

"What's that for?" inquired Wallace, pointing to a long, rusty, wire-wrapped, double-barreled blunderbuss of ashotgun, stuck in the holster of Jones's saddle.

The Colonel, who had been having a fine time with the impatient and curious hounds, did not vouchsafe anyinformation on that score. But very shortly we were destined to learn the use of this incongruous firearm. I was ridingin advance of Wallace, and a little behind Jones. The dogs--excepting Jude, who had been kicked and lamed--wereranging along before their master. Suddenly, right before me, I saw an immense jack-rabbit; and just then Moze and Doncaught sight of it. In fact, Moze bumped his blunt nose into the rabbit. When it leaped into scared action, Moze yelped,and Don followed suit. Then they were after it in wild, clamoring pursuit. Jones let out the stentorian blast, nowbecoming familiar, and spurred after them. He reached over, pulled the shotgun out of the holster and fired both barrelsat the jumping dogs.

I expressed my amazement in strong language, and Wallace whistled.

Don came sneaking back with his tail between his legs, and Moze, who had cowered as if stung, circled roundahead of us. Jones finally succeeded in gettin him back.

"Come in hyah! You measly rabbit dogs! What do you mean chasing off that way? We're after lions. Lions!understand?"

Don looked thoroughly convinced of his error, but Moze, being more thick-headed, appeared mystified rather thanhurt or frightened.

"What size shot do you use?" I asked.

"Number ten. They don't hurt much at seventy five yards," replied our leader. "I use them as sort of a long arm.You see, the dogs must be made to know what we're after. Ordinary means would never do in a case like this. My idea isto break them of coyotes, wolves and deer, and when we cross a lion trail, let them go. I'll teach them sooner than you'dthink. Only we must get where we can see what they're trailing. Then I can tell whether to call then back or not."

The sun was gilding the rim of the desert rampart when we began the ascent of the foothills of Buckskin. A steeptrail wound zigzag up the mountain We led our horses, as it was a long, hard climb. From time to time, as I stopped tocatch my breath I gazed away across the growing void to the gorgeous Pink Cliffs, far above and beyond the red wallwhich had seemed so high, and then out toward the desert. The irregular ragged crack in the plain, apparently only athread of broken ground, was the Grand Canyon. How unutterably remote, wild, grand was that world of red andbrown, of purple pall, of vague outline!

Two thousand feet, probably, we mounted to what Frank called Little Buckskin. In the west a copper glow, ridgedwith lead-colored clouds, marked where the sun had set. The air was very thin and icy cold. At the first clump ofpinyon pines, we made dry camp. When I sat down it was as if I had been anchored. Frank solicitously remarked that Ilooked "sort of beat." Jim built a roaring fire and began getting supper. A snow squall came on the rushing wind. The

air grew colder, and though I hugged the fire, I could not get warm. When I had satisfied my hunger, I rolled out mysleeping-bag and crept into it. I stretched my aching limbs and did not move again. Once I awoke, drowsily feeling thewarmth of the fire, and I heard Frank say: "He's asleep, dead to the world!"

"He's all in," said Jones. "Riding's what did it You know how a horse tears a man to pieces."

"Will he be able to stand it?" asked Frank, with as much solicitude as if he were my brother. "When you get outafter anythin'--well, you're hell. An' think of the country we're goin' into. I know you've never seen the breaks of theSiwash, but I have, an' it's the worst an' roughest country I ever saw. Breaks after breaks, like the ridges on awashboard, headin' on the south slope of Buckskin, an' runnin' down, side by side, miles an' miles, deeper an' deeper, tillthey run into that awful hole. It will be a killin' trip on men, horses an' dogs. Now, Mr. Wallace, he's been campin' an'roughin' with the Navajos for months; he's in some kind of shape, but--"

Frank concluded his remark with a doubtful pause.

"I'm some worried, too," replied Jones. "But he would come. He stood the desert well enough; even the Mormonssaid that."

In the ensuing silence the fire sputtered, the glare fitfully merged into dark shadows under the weird pinyons, andthe wind moaned through the short branches.

"Wal," drawled a slow, soft voice, "shore I reckon you're hollerin' too soon. Frank's measly trick puttin' him onSpot showed me. He rode out on Spot, an' he rode in on Spot. Shore he'll stay."

It was not all the warmth of the blankets that glowed over me then. The voices died away dreamily, and my eyelidsdropped sleepily tight. Late in the night I sat up suddenly, roused by some unusual disturbance. The fire was dead; thewind swept with a rush through the pinyons. From the black darkness came the staccato chorus of coyotes. Donbarked his displeasure; Sounder made the welkin ring, and old Moze growled low and deep, grumbling like mutteredthunder. Then all was quiet, and I slept.

Dawn, rosy red, confronted me when I opened my eyes. Breakfast was ready; Frank was packing Old Baldy; Jonestalked to his horse as he saddled him; Wallace came stooping his giant figure under the pinyons; the dogs, eager andsoft-eyed, sat around Jim and begged. The sun peeped over the Pink Cliffs; the desert still lay asleep, tranced in apurple and golden-streaked mist.

"Come, come!" said Jones, in his big voice. "We're slow; here's the sun."

"Easy, easy," replied Frank, "we've all the time there is."

When Frank threw the saddle over Satan I interrupted him and said I would care for my horse henceforward. Soonwe were under way, the horses fresh, the dogs scenting the keen, cold air.

The trail rolled over the ridges of pinyon and scrubby pine. Occasionally we could see the black, ragged crest ofBuckskin above us. From one of these ridges I took my last long look back at the desert, and engraved on my mind apicture of the red wall, and the many-hued ocean of sand. The trail, narrow and indistinct, mounted the last slow-risingslope; the pinyons failed, and the scrubby pines became abundant. At length we reached the top, and entered the greatarched aisles of Buckskin Forest. The ground was flat as a table. Magnificent pine trees, far apart, with branches highand spreading, gave the eye glad welcome. Some of these monarchs were eight feet thick at the base and two hundredfeet high. Here and there one lay, gaunt and prostrate, a victim of the wind. The smell of pitch pine was sweetlyoverpowering.

"When I went through here two weeks ago, the snow was a foot deep, an' I bogged in places," said Frank. "Thesun has been oozin' round here some. I'm afraid Jones won't find any snow on this end of Buckskin."

Thirty miles of winding trail, brown and springy from its thick mat of pine needles, shaded always by the massive,seamy-barked trees, took us over the extremity of Buckskin. Then we faced down into the head of a ravine that evergrew deeper, stonier and rougher. I shifted from side to side, from leg to leg in my saddle, dismounted and hobbledbefore Satan, mounted again, and rode on. Jones called the dogs and complained to them of the lack of snow. Wallacesat his horse comfortably, taking long pulls at his pipe and long gazes at the shaggy sides of the ravine. Frank,energetic and tireless, kept the pack-horses in the trail. Jim jogged on silently. And so we rode down to Oak Spring.

The spring was pleasantly situated in a grove of oaks and Pinyons, under the shadow of three cliffs. Three ravines

opened here into an oval valley. A rude cabin of rough-hewn logs stood near the spring.

"Get down, get down," sang out Frank. "We'll hang up here. Beyond Oak is No-Man's-Land. We take our chanceson water after we leave here."

When we had unsaddled, unpacked, and got a fire roaring on the wide stone hearth of the cabin, it was once againnight.

"Boys," said Jones after supper, "we're now on the edge of the lion country. Frank saw lion sign in here only twoweeks ago; and though the snow is gone, we stand a show of finding tracks in the sand and dust. To-morrow morning,before the sun gets a chance at the bottom of these ravines, we'll be up and doing. We'll each take a dog and search indifferent directions. Keep the dog in leash, and when he opens up, examine the ground carefully for tracks. If a dogopens on any track that you are sure isn't lion's, punish him. And when a lion-track is found, hold the dog in, wait andsignal. We'll use a signal I have tried and found far-reaching and easy to yell. Waa-hoo! That's it. Once yelled it meanscome. Twice means comes quickly. Three times means come--danger!"

In one corner of the cabin was a platform of poles, covered with straw. I threw the sleeping-bag on this, and wassoon stretched out. Misgivings as to my strength worried me before I closed my eyes. Once on my back, I felt I couldnot rise; my chest was sore; my cough deep and rasping. It seemed I had scarcely closed my eyes when Jones'simpatient voice recalled me from sweet oblivion.

"Frank, Frank, it's daylight. Jim--boys!" he called.

I tumbled out in a gray, wan twilight. It was cold enough to make the fire acceptable, but nothing like the morningbefore on Buckskin.

"Come to the festal board," drawled Jim, almost before I had my boots laced.

"Jones," said Frank, "Jim an' I'll ooze round here to-day. There's lots to do, an' we want to have things hitchedright before we strike for the Siwash. We've got to shoe Old Baldy, an' if we can't get him locoed, it'll take all of us to doit."

The light was still gray when Jones led off with Don, Wallace with Sounder and I with Moze. Jones directed us toseparate, follow the dry stream beds in the ravines, and remember his instructions given the night before.

The ravine to the right, which I entered, was choked with huge stones fallen from the cliff above, and pinyonsgrowing thick; and I wondered apprehensively how a man could evade a wild animal in such a place, much less chaseit. Old Moze pulled on his chain and sniffed at coyote and deer tracks. And every time he evinced interest in such, I cuthim with a switch, which, to tell the truth, he did not notice. I thought I heard a shout, and holding Moze tight, I waitedand listened.

"Waa-hoo--waa-hoo!" floated on the air, rather deadened as if it had come from round the triangular cliff that facedinto the valley. Urging and dragging Moze, I ran down the ravine as fast as I could, and soon encountered Wallacecoming from the middle ravine. "Jones," he said excitedly, "this way--there's the signal again." We dashed in haste forthe mouth of the third ravine, and came suddenly upon Jones, kneeling under a pinyon tree. "Boys, look!" heexclaimed, as he pointed to the ground. There, clearly defined in the dust, was a cat track as big as my spread hand, andthe mere sight of it sent a chill up my spine. "There's a lion track for you; made by a female, a two-year-old; but can'tsay if she passed here last night. Don won't take the trail. Try Moze."

I led Moze to the big, round imprint, and put his nose down into it. The old hound sniffed and sniffed, then lostinterest.

"Cold!" ejaculated Jones. "No go. Try Sounder. Come, old boy, you've the nose for it."

He urged the reluctant hound forward. Sounder needed not to be shown the trail; he stuck his nose in it, andstood very quiet for a long moment; then he quivered slightly, raised his nose and sought the next track. Step by stephe went slowly, doubtfully. All at once his tail wagged stiffly.

"Look at that!" cried Jones in delight. "He's caught a scent when the others couldn't. Hyah, Moze, get back. KeepMoze and Don back; give him room."

Slowly Sounder paced up the ravine, as carefully as if he were traveling on thin ice. He passed the dusty, open trail

to a scaly ground with little bits of grass, and he kept on.

We were electrified to hear him give vent to a deep bugle-blast note of eagerness.

"By George, he's got it, boys!" exclaimed Jones, as he lifted the stubborn, struggling hound off the trail. "I knowthat bay. It means a lion passed here this morning. And we'll get him up as sure as you're alive. Come, Sounder. Now forthe horses."

As we ran pell-mell into the little glade, where Jim sat mending some saddle trapping, Frank rode up the trail withthe horses.

"Well, I heard Sounder," he said with his genial smile. "Somethin's comin' off, eh? You'll have to ooze round someto keep up with that hound."

I saddled Satan with fingers that trembled in excitement, and pushed my little Remington automatic into the rifleholster.

"Boys, listen," said our leader. "We're off now in the beginning of a hunt new to you. Remember no shooting, noblood-letting, except in self-defense. Keep as close to me as you can. Listen for the dogs, and when you fall behind orseparate, yell out the signal cry. Don't forget this. We're bound to lose each other. Look out for the spikes and brancheson the trees. If the dogs split, whoever follows the one that trees the lion must wait there till the rest come up. Off now!Come, Sounder; Moze, you rascal, hyah! Come, Don, come, Puppy, and take your medicine."

Except Moze, the hounds were all trembling and running eagerly to and fro. When Sounder was loosed, he ledthem in a bee-line to the trail, with us cantering after. Sounder worked exactly as before, only he followed the lion tracksa little farther up the ravine before he bayed. He kept going faster and faster, occasionally letting out one deep, shortyelp. The other hounds did not give tongue, but eager, excited, baffled, kept at his heels. The ravine was long, and thewash at the bottom, up which the lion had proceeded, turned and twisted round boulders large as houses, and ledthrough dense growths of some short, rough shrub. Now and then the lion tracks showed plainly in the sand. For fivemiles or more Sounder led us up the ravine, which began to contract and grow steep. The dry stream bed got to be fullof thickets of branchless saplings, about the poplar--tall, straight, size of a man's arm, and growing so close we had topress them aside to let our horses through.

Presently Sounder slowed up and appeared at fault. We found him puzzling over an open, grassy patch, and afternosing it for a little while, he began skirting the edge.

"Cute dog!" declared Jones. "That Sounder will make a lion chaser. Our game has gone up here somewhere."

Sure enough, Sounder directly gave tongue from the side of the ravine. It was climb for us now. Broken shale,rocks of all dimensions, pinyons down and pinyons up made ascending no easy problem. We had to dismount and leadthe horses, thus losing ground. Jones forged ahead and reached the top of the ravine first. When Wallace and I got up,breathing heavily, Jones and the hounds were out of sight. But Sounder kept voicing his clear call, giving us ourdirection. Off we flew, over ground that was still rough, but enjoyable going compared to the ravine slopes. The ridgewas sparsely covered with cedar and pinyon, through which, far ahead, we pretty soon spied Jones. Wallace signaled,and our leader answered twice. We caught up with him on the brink of another ravine deeper and craggier than the first,full of dead, gnarled pinyon and splintered rocks.

"This gulch is the largest of the three that head in at Oak Spring," said Jones. "Boys, don't forget your direction.Always keep a feeling where camp is, always sense it every time you turn. The dogs have gone down. That lion is inhere somewhere. Maybe he lives down in the high cliffs near the spring and came up here last night for a kill he's buriedsomewhere. Lions never travel far. Hark! Hark! There's Sounder and the rest of them! They've got the scent; they've allgot it! Down, boys, down, and ride!"

With that he crashed into the cedar in a way that showed me how impervious he was to slashing branches, sharpas thorns, and steep descent and peril.

Wallace's big sorrel plunged after him and the rolling stones cracked. Suffering as I was by this time, with cramp inmy legs, and torturing pain, I had to choose between holding my horse in or falling off; so I chose the former andaccordingly got behind.

Dead cedar and pinyon trees lay everywhere, with their contorted limbs reaching out like the arms of a devil-fish.

Stones blocked every opening. Making the bottom of the ravine after what seemed an interminable time, I found thetracks of Jones and Wallace. A long "Waa-hoo!" drew me on; then the mellow bay of a hound floated up the ravine.Satan made up time in the sandy stream bed, but kept me busily dodging overhanging branches. I became aware, after asuccession of efforts to keep from being strung on pinyons, that the sand before me was clean and trackless. HaulingSatan up sharply, I waited irresolutely and listened. Then from high up the ravine side wafted down a medley of yelpsand barks.

"Waa-hoo, waa-hoo!" ringing down the slope, pealed against the cliff behind me, and sent the wild echoes flying.Satan, of his own accord, headed up the incline. Surprised at this, I gave him free rein. How he did climb! Not long did ittake me to discover that he picked out easier going than I had. Once I saw Jones crossing a ledge far above me, and Iyelled our signal cry. The answer returned clear and sharp; then its echo cracked under the hollow cliff, and crossingand recrossing the ravine, it died at last far away, like the muffled peal of a bell-buoy. Again I heard the blended yelpingof the hounds, and closer at hand. I saw a long, low cliff above, and decided that the hounds were running at the baseof it. Another chorus of yelps, quicker, wilder than the others, drew a yell from me. Instinctively I knew the dogs hadjumped game of some kind. Satan knew it as well as I, for he quickened his pace and sent the stones clattering behindhim.

I gained the base of the yellow cliff, but found no tracks in the dust of ages that had crumbled in its shadow, nordid I hear the dogs. Considering how close they had seemed, this was strange. I halted and listened. Silence reignedsupreme. The ragged cracks in the cliff walls could have harbored many a watching lion, and I cast an apprehensiveglance into their dark confines. Then I turned my horse to get round the cliff and over the ridge. When I again stopped,all I could hear was the thumping of my heart and the labored panting of Satan. I came to a break in the cliff, a steepplace of weathered rock, and I put Satan to it. He went up with a will. From the narrow saddle of the ridge-crest I tried totake my bearings. Below me slanted the green of pinyon, with the bleached treetops standing like spears, and uprisingyellow stones. Fancying I heard a gunshot, I leaned a straining ear against the soft breeze. The proof came presently inthe unmistakable report of Jones's blunderbuss. It was repeated almost instantly, giving reality to the direction, whichwas down the slope of what I concluded must be the third ravine. Wondering what was the meaning of the shots, andchagrined because I was out of the race, but calmer in mind, I let Satan stand.

Hardly a moment elapsed before a sharp bark tingled in my ears. It belonged to old Moze. Soon I distinguished arattling of stones and the sharp, metallic clicks of hoofs striking rocks. Then into a space below me loped a beautifuldeer, so large that at first I took it for an elk. Another sharp bark, nearer this time, told the tale of Moze's dereliction. In afew moments he came in sight, running with his tongue out and his head high.

"Hyah, you old gladiator! hyah! hyah!" I yelled and yelled again. Moze passed over the saddle on the trail of thedeer, and his short bark floated back to remind me how far he was from a lion dog.

Then I divined the meaning of the shotgun reports. The hounds had crossed a fresher trail than that of the lion,and our leader had discovered it. Despite a keen appreciation of Jones's task, I gave way to amusement, and repeatedWallace's paradoxical formula: "Pet the lions and shoot the hounds."

So I headed down the ravine, looking for a blunt, bold crag, which I had descried from camp. I found it before long,and profiting by past failures to judge of distance, gave my first impression a great stretch, and then decided that I wasmore than two miles from Oak.

Long after two miles had been covered, and I had begun to associate Jim's biscuits with a certain soft seat near aruddy fire, I was apparently still the same distance from my landmark crag. Suddenly a slight noise brought me to a halt.I listened intently. Only an indistinct rattling of small rocks disturbed the impressive stillness. It might have been theweathering that goes on constantly, and it might have been an animal. I inclined to the former idea till I saw Satan's earsgo up. Jones had told me to watch the ears of my horse, and short as had been my acquaintance with Satan, I hadlearned that he always discovered things more quickly than I. So I waited patiently.

From time to time a rattling roll of pebbles, almost musical, caught my ear. It came from the base of the wall ofyellow cliff that barred the summit of all those ridges. Satan threw up his head and nosed the breeze. The delicate,almost stealthy sounds, the action of my horse, the waiting drove my heart to extra work. The breeze quickened andfanned my cheek, and borne upon it came the faint and far-away bay of a hound. It came again and again, each timenearer. Then on a stronger puff of wind rang the clear, deep, mellow call that had given Sounder his beautiful name.Never it seemed had I heard music so blood-stirring. Sounder was on the trail of something, and he had it headed myway. Satan heard, shot up his long ears, and tried to go ahead; but I restrained and soothed him into quiet.

Long moments I sat there, with the poignant consciousness of the wildness of the scene, of the significant rattlingof the stones and of the bell-tongued hound baying incessantly, sending warm joy through my veins, the absorption insensations new, yielding only to the hunting instinct when Satan snorted and quivered. Again the deep-toned bayrang into the silence with its stirring thrill of life. And a sharp rattling of stones just above brought another snort fromSatan.

Across an open space in the pinyons a gray form flashed. I leaped off Satan and knelt to get a better view underthe trees. I soon made out another deer passing along the base of the cliff. Mounting again, I rode up to the cliff to waitfor Sounder.

A long time I had to wait for the hound. It proved that the atmosphere was as deceiving in regard to sound as tosight. Finally Sounder came running along the wall. I got off to intercept him. The crazy fellow--he had never respondedto my overtures of friendship--uttered short, sharp yelps of delight, and actually leaped into my arms. But I could nothold him. He darted upon the trail again and paid no heed to my angry shouts. With a resolve to overhaul him, I jumpedon Satan and whirled after the hound.

The black stretched out with such a stride that I was at pains to keep my seat. I dodged the jutting rocks andprojecting snags; felt stinging branches in my face and the rush of sweet, dry wind. Under the crumbling walls, overslopes of weathered stone and droppings of shelving rock, round protruding noses of cliff, over and under pinyonsSatan thundered. He came out on the top of the ridge, at the narrow back I had called a saddle. Here I caught a glimpseof Sounder far below, going down into the ravine from which I had ascended some time before. I called to him, but Imight as well have called to the wind.

Weary to the point of exhaustion, I once more turned Satan toward camp. I lay forward on his neck and let himhave his will. Far down the ravine I awoke to strange sounds, and soon recognized the cracking of iron-shod hoofsagainst stone; then voices. Turning an abrupt bend in the sandy wash, I ran into Jones and Wallace.

"Fall in! Line up in the sad procession!" said Jones. "Tige and the pup are faithful. The rest of the dogs aresomewhere between the Grand Canyon and the Utah desert."

I related my adventures, and tried to spare Moze and Sounder as much as conscience would permit.

"Hard luck!" commented Jones. "Just as the hounds jumped the cougar--Oh! they bounced him out of the rocksall right--don't you remember, just under that cliff wall where you and Wallace came up to me? Well, just as they jumpedhim, they ran right into fresh deer tracks. I saw one of the deer. Now that's too much for any hounds, except thosetrained for lions. I shot at Moze twice, but couldn't turn him. He has to be hurt, they've all got to be hurt to make themunderstand."

Wallace told of a wild ride somewhere in Jones's wake, and of sundry knocks and bruises he had sustained, ofpieces of corduroy he had left decorating the cedars and of a most humiliating event, where a gaunt and bare pinyonsnag had penetrated under his belt and lifted him, mad and kicking, off his horse.

"These Western nags will hang you on a line every chance they get," declared Jones, "and don't you overlookthat. Well, there's the cabin. We'd better stay here a few days or a week and break in the dogs and horses, for this day'swork was apple pie to what we'll get in the Siwash."

I groaned inwardly, and was remorselessly glad to see Wallace fall off his horse and walk on one leg to the cabin.When I got my saddle off Satan, had given him a drink and hobbled him, I crept into the cabin and dropped like a log. Ifelt as if every bone in my body was broken and my flesh was raw. I got gleeful gratification from Wallace's complaints,and Jones's remark that he had a stitch in his back. So ended the first chase after cougars.

CHAPTER 5.

OAK SPRING

Moze and Don and Sounder straggled into camp next morning, hungry, footsore and scarred; and as they limpedin, Jones met them with characteristic speech: "Well, you decided to come in when you got hungry and tired? Never

thought of how you fooled me, did you? Now, the first thing you get is a good licking."

He tied them in a little log pen near the cabin and whipped them soundly. And the next few days, while Wallaceand I rested, he took them out separately and deliberately ran them over coyote and deer trails. Sometimes we heard hisstentorian yell as a forerunner to the blast from his old shotgun. Then again we heard the shots unheralded by the yell.Wallace and I waxed warm under the collar over this peculiar method of training dogs, and each of us made dire threats.But in justice to their implacable trainer, the dogs never appeared to be hurt; never a spot of blood flecked their glossycoats, nor did they ever come home limping. Sounder grew wise, and Don gave up, but Moze appeared not to change.

"All hands ready to rustle," sang out Frank one morning. "Old Baldy's got to be shod."

This brought us all, except Jones, out of the cabin, to see the object of Frank's anxiety tied to a nearby oak. At firstI failed to recognize Old Baldy. Vanished was the slow, sleepy, apathetic manner that had characterized him; his ears layback on his head; fire flashed from his eyes. When Frank threw down a kit-bag, which emitted a metallic clanking, OldBaldy sat back on his haunches, planted his forefeet deep in the ground and plainly as a horse could speak, said "No!"

"Sometimes he's bad, and sometimes worse," growled Frank.

"Shore he's plumb bad this mornin'," replied Jim.

Frank got the three of us to hold Baldy's head and pull him up, then he ventured to lift a hind foot over his line.Old Baldy straightened out his leg and sent Frank sprawling into the dirt. Twice again Frank patiently tried to hold ahind leg, with the same result; and then he lifted a forefoot. Baldy uttered a very intelligible snort, bit through Wallace'sglove, yanked Jim off his feet, and scared me so that I let go his forelock. Then he broke the rope which held him to thetree. There was a plunge, a scattering of men, though Jim still valiantly held on to Baldy's head, and a thrashing ofscrub pinyon, where Baldy reached out vigorously with his hind feet. But for Jim, he would have escaped.

"What's all the row?" called Jones from the cabin. Then from the door, taking in the situation, he yelled: "Hold on,Jim! Pull down on the ornery old cayuse!"

He leaped into action with a lasso in each hand, one whirling round his head. The slender rope straightened with awhiz and whipped round Baldy's legs as he kicked viciously. Jones pulled it tight, then fastened it with nimble fingersto the tree.

"Let go! let go! Jim!" he yelled, whirling the other lasso. The loop flashed and fell over Baldy's head and tightenedround his neck. Jones threw all the weight of his burly form on the lariat, and Baldy crashed to the ground, rolled,tussled, screamed, and then lay on his back, kicking the air with three free legs. "Hold this," ordered Jones, giving thetight rope to Frank. Whereupon he grabbed my lasso from the saddle, roped Baldy's two forefeet, and pulled him downon his side. This lasso he fastened to a scrub cedar.

"He's chokin'!" said Frank.

"Likely he is," replied Jones shortly. "It'll do him good." But with his big hands he drew the coil loose and slippedit down over Baldy's nose, where he tightened it again.

"Now, go ahead," he said, taking the rope from Frank.

It had all been done in a twinkling. Baldy lay there groaning and helpless, and when Frank once again took hold ofthe wicked leg, he was almost passive. When the shoeing operation had been neatly and quickly attended to and Baldyreleased from his uncomfortable position he struggled to his feet with heavy breaths, shook himself, and looked at hismaster.

"How'd you like being hog-tied?" queried his conqueror, rubbing Baldy's nose. "Now, after this you'll have somemanners."

Old Baldy seemed to understand, for he looked sheepish, and lapsed once more into his listless, lazy unconcern.

"Where's Jim's old cayuse, the pack-horse?" asked our leader.

"Lost. Couldn't find him this morning, an' had a deuce of a time findin' the rest of the bunch. Old Baldy was cute.He hid in a bunch of pinyons an' stood quiet so his bell wouldn't ring. I had to trail him."

"Do the horses stray far when they are hobbled?" inquired Wallace.

"If they keep jumpin' all night they can cover some territory. We're now on the edge of the wild horse country, andour nags know this as well as we. They smell the mustangs, an' would break their necks to get away. Satan and thesorrel were ten miles from camp when I found them this mornin'. An' Jim's cayuse went farther, an' we never will get him.He'll wear his hobbles out, then away with the wild horses. Once with them, he'll never be caught again."

On the sixth day of our stay at Oak we had visitors, whom Frank introduced as the Stewart brothers and Lawson,wild-horse wranglers. They were still, dark men, whose facial expression seldom varied; tall and lithe and wiry as themustangs they rode. The Stewarts were on their way to Kanab, Utah, to arrange for the sale of a drove of horses theyhad captured and corraled in a narrow canyon back in the Siwash. Lawson said he was at our service, and waspromptly hired to look after our horses.

"Any cougar signs back in the breaks?" asked Jones.

"Wal, there's a cougar on every deer trail," replied the elder Stewart, "An' two for every pinto in the breaks. OldTom himself downed fifteen colts fer us this spring."

"Fifteen colts! That's wholesale murder. Why don't you kill the butcher?"

"We've tried more'n onct. It's a turrible busted up country, them brakes. No man knows it, an' the cougars do. OldTom ranges all the ridges and brakes, even up on the slopes of Buckskin; but he lives down there in them holes, an'Lord knows, no dog I ever seen could follow him. We tracked him in the snow, an' had dogs after him, but none couldstay with him, except two as never cum back. But we've nothin' agin Old Tom like Jeff Clarke, a hoss rustler, who has astring of pintos corraled north of us. Clarke swears he ain't raised a colt in two years."

"We'll put that old cougar up a tree," exclaimed Jones.

"If you kill him we'll make you all a present of a mustang, an' Clarke, he'll give you two each," replied Stewart."We'd be gettin' rid of him cheap."

"How many wild horses on the mountain now?"

"Hard to tell. Two or three thousand, mebbe. There's almost no ketchin' them, an' they regrowin' all the time Weain't had no luck this spring. The bunch in corral we got last year."

"Seen anythin' of the White Mustang?" inquired Frank. "Ever get a rope near him?"

"No nearer'n we hev fer six years back. He can't be ketched. We seen him an' his band of blacks a few days ago,headin' fer a water-hole down where Nail Canyon runs into Kanab Canyon. He's so cunnin' he'll never water at any ofour trap corrals. An' we believe he can go without water fer two weeks, unless mebbe he hes a secret hole we've nevertrailed him to."

"Would we have any chance to see this White Mustang and his band?" questioned Jones.

"See him? Why, thet'd be easy. Go down Snake Gulch, camp at Singin' Cliffs, go over into Nail Canyon, an' wait.Then send some one slippin' down to the water-hole at Kanab Canyon, an' when the band cums in to drink--which Ireckon will be in a few days now--hev them drive the mustangs up. Only be sure to hev them get ahead of the WhiteMustang, so he'll hev only one way to cum, fer he sure is knowin'. He never makes a mistake. Mebbe you'll get to seehim cum by like a white streak. Why, I've heerd thet mustang's hoofs ring like bells on the rocks a mile away. His hoofsare harder'n any iron shoe as was ever made. But even if you don't get to see him, Snake Gulch is worth seein'."

I learned later from Stewart that the White Mustang was a beautiful stallion of the wildest strain of mustang blueblood. He had roamed the long reaches between the Grand Canyon and Buckskin toward its southern slope for years;he had been the most sought-for horse by all the wranglers, and had become so shy and experienced that nothing but aglimpse was ever obtained of him. A singular fact was that he never attached any of his own species to his band,unless they were coal black. He had been known to fight and kill other stallions, but he kept out of the well-woodedand watered country frequented by other bands, and ranged the brakes of the Siwash as far as he could range. Theusual method, indeed the only successful way to capture wild horses, was to build corrals round the waterholes. Thewranglers lay out night after night watching. When the mustangs came to drink--which was always after dark--thegates would be closed on them. But the trick had never even been tried on the White Mustang, for the simple reasonthat he never approached one of these traps.

"Boys," said Jones, "seeing we need breaking in, we'll give the White Mustang a little run."

This was most pleasurable news, for the wild horses fascinated me. Besides, I saw from the expression on ourleader's face that an uncapturable mustang was an object of interest for him.

Wallace and I had employed the last few warm sunny afternoons in riding up and down the valley, below Oak,where there was a fine, level stretch. Here I wore out my soreness of muscle, and gradually overcame my awkwardnessin the saddle. Frank's remedy of maple sugar and red pepper had rid me of my cold, and with the return of strength, andthe coming of confidence, full, joyous appreciation of wild environment and life made me unspeakably happy. And Inoticed that my companions were in like condition of mind, though self-contained where I was exuberant. Wallacegalloped his sorrel and watched the crags; Jones talked more kindly to the dogs; Jim baked biscuits indefatigably, andsmoked in contented silence; Frank said always: "We'll ooze along easy like, for we've all the time there is." Whichsentiment, whether from reiterated suggestion, or increasing confidence in the practical cowboy, or charm of its freeimport, gradually won us all.

"Boys," said Jones, as we sat round the campfire, "I see you're getting in shape. Well, I've worn off the wire edgemyself. And I have the hounds coming fine. They mind me now, but they're mystified. For the life of them they can'tunderstand what I mean. I don't blame them. Wait till, by good luck, we get a cougar in a tree. When Sounder and Donsee that, we've lion dogs, boys! we've lion dogs! But Moze is a stubborn brute. In all my years of animal experience,I've never discovered any other way to make animals obey than by instilling fear and respect into their hearts. I've beenfond of buffalo, horses and dogs, but sentiment never ruled me. When animals must obey, they must--that's all, and nomawkishness! But I never trusted a buffalo in my life. If I had I wouldn't be here to-night. You all know how manykeepers of tame wild animals get killed. I could tell you dozens of tragedies. And I've often thought, since I got backfrom New York, of that woman I saw with her troop of African lions. I dream about those lions, and see them leapingover her head. What a grand sight that was! But the public is fooled. I read somewhere that she trained those lions bylove. I don't believe it. I saw her use a whip and a steel spear. Moreover, I saw many things that escaped mostobservers--how she entered the cage, how she maneuvered among them, how she kept a compelling gaze on them! Itwas an admirable, a great piece of work. Maybe she loves those huge yellow brutes, but her life was in danger everymoment while she was in that cage, and she knew it. Some day, one of her pets likely the King of Beasts she pets themost will rise up and kill her. That is as certain as death."

CHAPTER 6.

THE WHITE MUSTANG

For thirty miles down Nail Canyon we marked, in every dusty trail and sandy wash, the small, oval, sharply definedtracks of the White Mustang and his band.

The canyon had been well named. It was long, straight and square sided; its bare walls glared steel-gray in thesun, smooth, glistening surfaces that had been polished by wind and water. No weathered heaps of shale, no crumbledpiles of stone obstructed its level floor. And, softly toning its drab austerity, here grew the white sage, waving in thebreeze, the Indian Paint Brush, with vivid vermilion flower, and patches of fresh, green grass.

"The White King, as we Arizona wild-hoss wranglers calls this mustang, is mighty pertickler about his feed, an' heranged along here last night, easy like, browsin' on this white sage," said Stewart. Inflected by our intense interest inthe famous mustang, and ruffled slightly by Jones's manifest surprise and contempt that no one had captured him,Stewart had volunteered to guide us. "Never knowed him to run in this way fer water; fact is, never knowed NailCanyon had a fork. It splits down here, but you'd think it was only a crack in the wall. An' thet cunnin' mustang hesbeen foolin' us fer years about this water-hole."

The fork of Nail Canyon, which Stewart had decided we were in, had been accidentally discovered by Frank, who,in search of our horses one morning had crossed a ridge, to come suddenly upon the blind, box-like head of thecanyon. Stewart knew the lay of the ridges and run of the canyons as well as any man could know a country where,seemingly, every rod was ridged and bisected, and he was of the opinion that we had stumbled upon one of the WhiteMustang's secret passages, by which he had so often eluded his pursuers.

Hard riding had been the order of the day, but still we covered ten more miles by sundown. The canyon apparentlyclosed in on us, so camp was made for the night. The horses were staked out, and supper made ready while theshadows were dropping; and when darkness settled thick over us, we lay under our blankets.

Morning disclosed the White Mustang's secret passage. It was a narrow cleft, splitting the canyon wall, rough,uneven, tortuous and choked with fallen rocks--no more than a wonderful crack in solid stone, opening into anothercanyon. Above us the sky seemed a winding, flowing stream of blue. The walls were so close in places that a horsewith pack would have been blocked, and a rider had to pull his legs up over the saddle. On the far side, the passage fellvery suddenly for several hundred feet to the floor of the other canyon. No hunter could have seen it, or suspected itfrom that side.

"This is Grand Canyon country, an' nobody knows what he's goin' to find," was Frank's comment.

"Now we're in Nail Canyon proper," said Stewart; "An' I know my bearin's. I can climb out a mile below an' cutacross to Kanab Canyon, an' slip up into Nail Canyon agin, ahead of the mustangs, an' drive 'em up. I can't miss 'em, ferKanab Canyon is impassable down a little ways. The mustangs will hev to run this way. So all you need do is go belowthe break, where I climb out, an' wait. You're sure goin' to get a look at the White Mustang. But wait. Don't expect himbefore noon, an' after thet, any time till he comes. Mebbe it'll be a couple of days, so keep a good watch."

Then taking our man Lawson, with blankets and a knapsack of food, Stewart rode off down the canyon.

We were early on the march. As we proceeded the canyon lost its regularity and smoothness; it became crookedas a rail fence, narrower, higher, rugged and broken. Pinnacled cliffs, cracked and leaning, menaced us from above.Mountains of ruined wall had tumbled into fragments.

It seemed that Jones, after much survey of different corners, angles and points in the canyon floor, chose hisposition with much greater care than appeared necessary for the ultimate success of our venture--which was simply tosee the White Mustang, and if good fortune attended us, to snap some photographs of this wild king of horses. Itflashed over me that, with his ruling passion strong within him, our leader was laying some kind of trap for thatmustang, was indeed bent on his capture.

Wallace, Frank and Jim were stationed at a point below the break where Stewart had evidently gone up and out.How a horse could have climbed that streaky white slide was a mystery. Jones's instructions to the men were to waituntil the mustangs were close upon them, and then yell and shout and show themselves.

He took me to a jutting corner of cliff, which hid us from the others, and here he exercised still more care inscrutinizing the lay of the ground. A wash from ten to fifteen feet wide, and as deep, ran through the canyon in asomewhat meandering course. At the corner which consumed so much of his attention, the dry ditch ran along the cliffwall about fifty feet out; between it and the wall was good level ground, on the other side huge rocks and shale made ithummocky, practically impassable for a horse. It was plain the mustangs, on their way up, would choose the inside ofthe wash; and here in the middle of the passage, just round the jutting corner, Jones tied our horses to good, strongbushes. His next act was significant. He threw out his lasso and, dragging every crook out of it, carefully recoiled it,and hung it loose over the pommel of his saddle.

"The White Mustang may be yours before dark," he said with the smile that came so seldom. "Now I placed ourhorses there for two reasons. The mustangs won't see them till they're right on them. Then you'll see a sight and have achance for a great picture. They will halt; the stallion will prance, whistle and snort for a fight, and then they'll see thesaddles and be off. We'll hide across the wash, down a little way, and at the right time we'll shout and yell to drive themup."

By piling sagebrush round a stone, we made a hiding-place. Jones was extremely cautious to arrange the bunchesin natural positions. "A Rocky Mountain Big Horn is the only four-footed beast," he said, "that has a better eye than awild horse. A cougar has an eye, too; he's used to lying high up on the cliffs and looking down for his quarry so as tostalk it at night; but even a cougar has to take second to a mustang when it comes to sight."

The hours passed slowly. The sun baked us; the stones were too hot to touch; flies buzzed behind our ears;tarantulas peeped at us from holes. The afternoon slowly waned.

At dark we returned to where we had left Wallace and the cowboys. Frank had solved the problem of water supply,for he had found a little spring trickling from a cliff, which, by skillful management, produced enough drink for thehorses. We had packed our water for camp use.

"You take the first watch to-night," said Jones to me after supper. "The mustangs might try to slip by our fire inthe night and we must keep a watch or them. Call Wallace when your time's up. Now, fellows, roll in."

When the pink of dawn was shading white, we were at our posts. A long, hot day--interminably long, deadeningto the keenest interest--passed, and still no mustangs came. We slept and watched again, in the grateful cool of night,till the third day broke.

The hours passed; the cool breeze changed to hot; the sun blazed over the canyon wall; the stones scorched; theflies buzzed. I fell asleep in the scant shade of the sage bushes and awoke, stifled and moist. The old plainsman, neverweary, leaned with his back against a stone and watched, with narrow gaze, the canyon below. The steely walls hurt myeyes; the sky was like hot copper. Though nearly wild with heat and aching bones and muscles and the long hours ofwait--wait--wait, I was ashamed to complain, for there sat the old man, still and silent. I routed out a hairy tarantula fromunder a stone and teased him into a frenzy with my stick, and tried to get up a fight between him and a scallop-backedhorned-toad that blinked wonderingly at me. Then I espied a green lizard on a stone. The beautiful reptile was about afoot in length, bright green, dotted with red, and he had diamonds for eyes. Nearby a purple flower blossomed, delicateand pale, with a bee sucking at its golden heart. I observed then that the lizard had his jewel eyes upon the bee; heslipped to the edge of the stone, flicked out a long, red tongue, and tore the insect from its honeyed perch. Here werebeauty, life and death; and I had been weary for something to look at, to think about, to distract me from the wearisomewait!

"Listen!" broke in Jones's sharp voice. His neck was stretched, his eyes were closed, his ear was turned to thewind.

With thrilling, reawakened eagerness, I strained my hearing. I caught a faint sound, then lost it.

"Put your ear to the ground," said Jones. I followed his advice, and detected the rhythmic beat of gallopinghorses.

"The mustangs are coming, sure as you're born!" exclaimed Jones.

"There I see the cloud of dust!" cried he a minute later.

In the first bend of the canyon below, a splintered ruin of rock now lay under a rolling cloud of dust. A white flashappeared, a line of bobbing black objects, and more dust; then with a sharp pounding of hoofs, into clear vision shot adense black band of mustangs, and well in front swung the White King.

"Look! Look! I never saw the beat of that--never in my born days!" cried Jones. "How they move! yet that whitefellow isn't half-stretched out. Get your picture before they pass. You'll never see the beat of that."

With long manes and tails flying, the mustangs came on apace and passed us in a trampling roar, the white stallionin the front. Suddenly a shrill, whistling blast, unlike any sound I had ever heard, made the canyon fairly ring. Thewhite stallion plunged back, and his band closed in behind him. He had seen our saddle horses. Then trembling,whinnying, and with arched neck and high-poised head, bespeaking his mettle, he advanced a few paces, and againwhistled his shrill note of defiance. Pure creamy white he was, and built like a racer. He pranced, struck his hoofs hardand cavorted; then, taking sudden fright, he wheeled.

It was then, when the mustangs were pivoting, with the white in the lead, that Jones jumped upon the stone, firedhis pistol and roared with all his strength. Taking his cue, I did likewise. The band huddled back again, uncertain andfrightened, then broke up the canyon.

Jones jumped the ditch with surprising agility, and I followed close at his heels. When we reached our plunginghorses, he shouted: "Mount, and hold this passage. Keep close in by that big stone at the turn so they can't run youdown, or stampede you. If they head your way, scare them back."

Satan quivered, and when I mounted, reared and plunged. I had to hold him in hard, for he was eager to run. At thecliff wall I was at some pains to check him. He kept champing his bit and stamping his feet.

From my post I could see the mustangs flying before a cloud of dust. Jones was turning in his horse behind alarge rock in the middle of the canyon, where he evidently intended to hide. Presently successive yells and shots fromour comrades blended in a roar which the narrow box-canyon augmented and echoed from wall to wall. High the WhiteMustang reared, and above the roar whistled his snort of furious terror. His band wheeled with him and charged back,

their hoofs ringing like hammers on iron.

The crafty old buffalo-hunter had hemmed the mustangs in a circle and had left himself free in the center. It was awily trick, born of his quick mind and experienced eye.

The stallion, closely crowded by his followers, moved swiftly I saw that he must pass near the stone. Thundering,crashing, the horses came on. Away beyond them I saw Frank and Wallace. Then Jones yelled to me: "Open up! openup!"

I turned Satan into the middle of the narrow passage, screaming at the top of my voice and discharging myrevolver rapidly.

But the wild horses thundered on. Jones saw that they would not now be balked, and he spurred his bay directlyin their path. The big horse, courageous as his intrepid master, dove forward.

Then followed confusion for me. The pound of hoofs, the snorts, a screaming neigh that was frightful, the madstampede of the mustangs with a whirling cloud of dust, bewildered and frightened me so that I lost sight of Jones.Danger threatened and passed me almost before I was aware of it. Out of the dust a mass of tossing manes, foam-flecked black horses, wild eyes and lifting hoofs rushed at me. Satan, with a presence of mind that shamed mine, leapedback and hugged the wall. My eyes were blinded by dust; the smell of dust choked me. I felt a strong rush of wind anda mustang grazed my stirrup. Then they had passed, on the wings of the dust-laden breeze.

But not all, for I saw that Jones had, in some inexplicable manner, cut the White Mustang and two of his blacksout of the band. He had turned them back again and was pursuing them. The bay he rode had never before appeared tomuch advantage, and now, with his long, lean, powerful body in splendid action, imbued with the relentless will of hisrider, what a picture he presented! How he did run! With all that, the White Mustang made him look dingy and slow.Nevertheless, it was a critical time in the wild career of that king of horses. He had been penned in a space two hundredby five hundred yards, half of which was separated from him by a wide ditch, a yawning chasm that he had refused,and behind him, always keeping on the inside, wheeled the yelling hunter, who savagely spurred his bay and whirled adeadly lasso. He had been cut off and surrounded; the very nature of the rocks and trails of the canyon threatened toend his freedom or his life. Certain it was he preferred to end the latter, for he risked death from the rocks as he wentover them in long leaps.

Jones could have roped either of the two blacks, but he hardly noticed them. Covered with dust and splotches offoam, they took their advantage, turned on the circle toward the passage way and galloped by me out of sight. AgainWallace, Frank and Jim let out strings of yells and volleys. The chase was narrowing down. Trapped, the WhiteMustang King had no chance. What a grand spirit he showed! Frenzied as I was with excitement, the thought occurredto me that this was an unfair battle, that I ought to stand aside and let him pass. But the blood and lust of primitiveinstinct held me fast. Jones, keeping back, met his every turn. Yet always with lithe and beautiful stride the stallion keptout of reach of the whirling lariat.

"Close in!" yelled Jones, and his voice, powerful with a note of triumph, bespoke the knell of the king's freedom.

The trap closed in. Back and forth at the upper end the White Mustang worked; then rendered desperate by theclosing in, he circled round nearer to me. Fire shone in his wild eyes. The wily Jones was not to be outwitted; he kept inthe middle, always on the move, and he yelled to me to open up.

I lost my voice again, and fired my last shot. Then the White Mustang burst into a dash of daring, despairingspeed. It was his last magnificent effort. Straight for the wash at the upper end he pointed his racy, spirited head, andhis white legs stretched far apart, twinkled and stretched again. Jones galloped to cut him off, and the yells he emittedwere demoniacal. It was a long, straight race for the mustang, a short curve for the bay.

That the white stallion gained was as sure as his resolve to elude capture, and he never swerved a foot from hiscourse. Jones might have headed him, but manifestly he wanted to ride with him, as well as to meet him, so in case thelasso went true, a terrible shock might be averted.

Up went Jones's arm as the space shortened, and the lasso ringed his head. Out it shot, lengthened like a yellow,striking snake, and fell just short of the flying white tail.

The White Mustang, fulfilling his purpose in a last heroic display of power, sailed into the air, up and up, and overthe wide wash like a white streak. Free! the dust rolled in a cloud from under his hoofs, and he vanished.

Jones's superb horse, crashing down on his haunches, just escaped sliding into the hole.

I awoke to the realization that Satan had carried me, in pursuit of the thrilling chase, all the way across the circlewithout my knowing it.

Jones calmly wiped the sweat from his face, calmly coiled his lasso, and calmly remarked:

"In trying to capture wild animals a man must never be too sure. Now what I thought my strong point was myweak point--the wash. I made sure no horse could ever jump that hole."

CHAPTER 7.

SNAKE GULCH

Not far from the scene of our adventure with the White Streak as we facetious and appreciatively named themustang, deep, flat cave indented the canyon wall. By reason of its sandy floor and close proximity to Frank's tricklingspring, we decided to camp in it. About dawn Lawson and Stewart straggled in on spent horse and found awaitingthem a bright fire, a hot supper and cheery comrades.

"Did yu fellars git to see him?" was the ranger's first question.

"Did we get to see him?" echoed five lusty voice as one. "We did!"

It was after Frank, in his plain, blunt speech had told of our experience, that the long Arizonian gazed fixedly atJones.

"Did yu acktully tech the hair of thet mustang with a rope?"

In all his days Jones never had a greater complement. By way of reply, he moved his big hand to button of hiscoat, and, fumbling over it, unwound a string of long, white hairs, then said: "I pulled these out of his tail with mylasso; it missed his left hind hoof about six inches."

There were six of the hairs, pure, glistening white, and over three feet long. Stewart examined then in expressivesilence, then passed them along; and when they reached me, they stayed.

The cave, lighted up by a blazing fire, appeared to me a forbidding, uncanny place. Small, peculiar round holes,and dark cracks, suggestive of hidden vermin, gave me a creepy feeling; and although not over-sensitive on thesubject of crawling, creeping things, I voiced my disgust.

"Say, I don't like the idea of sleeping in this hole. I'll bet it's full of spiders, snakes and centipedes and otherpoisonous things."

Whatever there was in my inoffensive declaration to rouse the usually slumbering humor of the Arizonians, andthe thinly veiled ridicule of Colonel Jones, and a mixture of both in my once loyal California friend, I am not prepared tostate. Maybe it was the dry, sweet, cool air of Nail Canyon; maybe my suggestion awoke ticklish associations thatworked themselves off thus; maybe it was the first instance of my committing myself to a breach of camp etiquette. Bethat as it may, my innocently expressed sentiment gave rise to bewildering dissertations on entomology, and mostremarkable and startling tales from first-hand experience.

"Like as not," began Frank in matter-of-fact tone. "Them's tarantuler holes all right. An' scorpions, centipedes an'rattlers always rustle with tarantulers. But we never mind them--not us fellers! We're used to sleepin' with them. Why, Ioften wake up in the night to see a big tarantuler on my chest, an' see him wink. Ain't thet so, Jim?"

"Shore as hell," drawled faithful, slow Jim.

"Reminds me how fatal the bite of a centipede is," took up Colonel Jones, complacently. "Once I was sitting incamp with a hunter, who suddenly hissed out: 'Jones, for God's sake don't budge! There's a centipede on your arm!' Hepulled his Colt, and shot the blamed centipede off as clean as a whistle. But the bullet hit a steer in the leg; and would

you believe it, the bullet carried so much poison that in less than two hours the steer died of blood poisoning.Centipedes are so poisonous they leave a blue trail on flesh just by crawling over it. Look there!"

He bared his arm, and there on the brown-corded flesh was a blue trail of something, that was certain. It mighthave been made by a centipede.

"This is a likely place for them," put in Wallace, emitting a volume of smoke and gazing round the cave walls withthe eye of a connoisseur. "My archaeological pursuits have given me great experience with centipedes, as you mayimagine, considering how many old tombs, caves and cliff-dwellings I have explored. This Algonkian rock is about theright stratum for centipedes to dig in. They dig somewhat after the manner of the fluviatile long-tailed decapodcrustaceans, of the genera Thoracostraca, the common crawfish, you know. From that, of course, you can imagine, if acentipede can bite rock, what a biter he is."

I began to grow weak, and did not wonder to see Jim's long pipe fall from his lips. Frank looked queer around thegills, so to speak, but the gaunt Stewart never batted an eye.

"I camped here two years ago," he said, "An' the cave was alive with rock-rats, mice, snakes, horned-toads, lizardsan' a big Gila monster, besides bugs, scorpions' rattlers, an' as fer tarantulers an' centipedes--say! I couldn't sleep fer thenoise they made fightin'."

"I seen the same," concluded Lawson, as nonchalant as a wild-horse wrangler well could be. "An' as fer me, now Iallus lays perfickly still when the centipedes an' tarantulers begin to drop from their holes in the roof, same as themholes up there. An' when they light on me, I never move, nor even breathe fer about five minutes. Then they take anotion I'm dead an' crawl off. But sure, if I'd breathed I'd been a goner!"

All of this was playfully intended for the extinction of an unoffending and impressionable tenderfoot.

With an admiring glance at my tormentors, I rolled out my sleeping-bag and crawled into it, vowing I would remainthere even if devil-fish, armed with pikes, invaded our cave.

Late in the night I awoke. The bottom of the canyon and the outer floor of our cave lay bathed in white, clearmoonlight. A dense, gloomy black shadow veiled the opposite canyon wall. High up the pinnacles and turrets pointedtoward a resplendent moon. It was a weird, wonderful scene of beauty entrancing, of breathless, dreaming silence thatseemed not of life. Then a hoot-owl lamented dismally, his call fitting the scene and the dead stillness; the echoesresounded from cliff to cliff, strangely mocking and hollow, at last reverberating low and mournful in the distance.

How long I lay there enraptured with the beauty of light and mystery of shade, thrilling at the lonesome lament ofthe owl, I have no means to tell; but I was awakened from my trance by the touch of something crawling over me.Promptly I raised my head. The cave was as light as day. There, sitting sociably on my sleeping-bag was a great blacktarantula, as large as my hand.

For one still moment, notwithstanding my contempt for Lawson's advice, I certainly acted upon it to the letter. Ifever I was quiet, and if ever I was cold, the time was then. My companions snored in blissful ignorance of my plight.Slight rustling sounds attracted my wary gaze from the old black sentinel on my knee. I saw other black spiders runningto and fro on the silver, sandy floor. A giant, as large as a soft-shell crab, seemed to be meditating an assault uponJones's ear. Another, grizzled and shiny with age or moonbeams I could not tell which--pushed long, tentative feelersinto Wallace's cap. I saw black spots darting over the roof. It was not a dream; the cave was alive with tarantulas!

Not improbably my strong impression that the spider on my knee deliberately winked at me was the result ofmemory, enlivening imagination. But it sufficed to bring to mind, in one rapid, consoling flash, the irrevocable law ofdestiny--that the deeds of the wicked return unto them again.

I slipped back into my sleeping-bag, with a keen consciousness of its nature, and carefully pulled the flap in place,which almost hermetically sealed me up.

"Hey! Jones! Wallace! Frank! Jim!" I yelled, from the depths of my safe refuge.

Wondering cries gave me glad assurance that they had awakened from their dreams.

"The cave's alive with tarantulas!" I cried, trying to hide my unholy glee.

"I'll be durned if it ain't!" ejaculated Frank.

"Shore it beats hell!" added Jim, with a shake of his blanket.

"Look out, Jones, there's one on your pillow!" shouted Wallace.

Whack! A sharp blow proclaimed the opening of hostilities.

Memory stamped indelibly every word of that incident; but innate delicacy prevents the repetition of all save theold warrior's concluding remarks: "! ! ! place I was ever in! Tarantulas by the million--centipedes, scorpions, bats!Rattlesnakes, too, I'll swear. Look out, Wallace! there, under your blanket!"

From the shuffling sounds which wafted sweetly into my bed, I gathered that my long friend from California musthave gone through motions creditable to a contortionist. An ensuing explosion from Jones proclaimed to the listeningworld that Wallace had thrown a tarantula upon him. Further fearful language suggested the thought that ColonelJones had passed on the inquisitive spider to Frank. The reception accorded the unfortunate tarantula, no doubtscared out of its wits, began with a wild yell from Frank and ended in pandemonium.

While the confusion kept up, with whacks and blows and threshing about, with language such as never beforehad disgraced a group of old campers, I choked with rapture, and reveled in the sweetness of revenge.

When quiet reigned once more in the black and white canyon, only one sleeper lay on the moon-silvered sand ofthe cave.

At dawn, when I opened sleepy eyes, Frank, Slim, Stewart and Lawson had departed, as pre-arranged, with theoutfit, leaving the horses belonging to us and rations for the day. Wallace and I wanted to climb the divide at the break,and go home by way of Snake Gulch, and the Colonel acquiesced with the remark that his sixty-three years had taughthim there was much to see in the world. Coming to undertake it, we found the climb--except for a slide of weatheredrock--no great task, and we accomplished it in half an hour, with breath to spare and no mishap to horses.

But descending into Snake Gulch, which was only a mile across the sparsely cedared ridge, proved to be tediouslabor. By virtue of Satan's patience and skill, I forged ahead; which advantage, however, meant more risk for mebecause of the stones set in motion above. They rolled and bumped and cut into me, and I sustained many a bruisetrying to protect the sinewy slender legs of my horse. The descent ended without serious mishap.

Snake Gulch had a character and sublimity which cast Nail Canyon into the obscurity of forgetfulness. The greatcontrast lay in the diversity of structure. The rock was bright red, with parapet of yellow, that leaned, heaved, bulgedoutward. These emblazoned cliff walls, two thousand feet high, were cracked from turret to base; they bowled out atsuch an angle that we were afraid to ride under them. Mountains of yellow rock hung balanced, ready to tumble downat the first angry breath of the gods. We rode among carved stones, pillars, obelisks and sculptured ruined walls of afallen Babylon. Slides reaching all the way across and far up the canyon wall obstructed our passage. On every stonesilent green lizards sunned themselves, gliding swiftly as we came near to their marble homes.

We came into a region of wind-worn caves, of all sizes and shapes, high and low on the cliffs; but strange to say,only on the north side of the canyon they appeared with dark mouths open and uninviting. One, vast and deep, thoughfar off, menaced us as might the cave of a tawny-maned king of beasts; yet it impelled, fascinated and drew us on.

"It's a long, hard climb," said Wallace to the Colonel, as we dismounted.

"Boys, I'm with you," came the reply. And he was with us all the way, as we clambered over the immense blocksand threaded a passage between them and pulled weary legs up, one after the other. So steep lay the jumble of clifffragments that we lost sight of the cave long before we got near it. Suddenly we rounded a stone, to halt and gasp atthe thing looming before us.

The dark portal of death or hell might have yawned there. A gloomy hole, large enough to admit a church, hadbeen hollowed in the cliff by ages of nature's chiseling.

"Vast sepulcher of Time's past, give up thy dead!" cried Wallace, solemnly.

"Oh! dark Stygian cave forlorn!" quoted I, as feelingly as my friend.

Jones hauled us down from the clouds.

"Now, I wonder what kind of a prehistoric animal holed in here?" said he.

Forever the one absorbing interest! If he realized the sublimity of this place, he did not show it.

The floor of the cave ascended from the very threshold. Stony ridges circled from wall to wall. We climbed till wewere two hundred feet from the opening, yet we were not half-way to the dome.

Our horses, browsing in the sage far below, looked like ants. So steep did the ascent become that we desisted; forif one of us had slipped on the smooth incline, the result would have been terrible. Our voices rang clear and hollowfrom the walls. We were so high that the sky was blotted out by the overhanging square, cornice-like top of the door;and the light was weird, dim, shadowy, opaque. It was a gray tomb.

"Waa-hoo!" yelled Jones with all the power of his wide, leather lungs.

Thousands of devilish voices rushed at us, seemingly on puffs of wind. Mocking, deep echoes bellowed from theebon shades at the back of the cave, and the walls, taking them up, hurled them on again in fiendish concatenation.

We did not again break the silence of that tomb, where the spirits of ages lay in dusty shrouds; and we crawleddown as if we had invaded a sanctuary and invoked the wrath of the gods.

We all proposed names: Montezuma's Amphitheater being the only rival of Jones's selection, Echo cave, which wefinally chose.

Mounting our horses again, we made twenty miles of Snake Gulch by noon, when we rested for lunch. All the wayup we had played the boy's game of spying for sights, with the honors about even. It was a question if Snake Gulchever before had such a raking over. Despite its name, however, we discovered no snakes.

From the sandy niche of a cliff where we lunched Wallace espied a tomb, and heralded his discovery with avictorious whoop. Digging in old ruins roused in him much the same spirit that digging in old books roused in me.Before we reached him, he had a big bowie-knife buried deep in the red, sandy floor of the tomb.

This one-time sealed house of the dead had been constructed of small stones, held together by a cement, thenature of which, Wallace explained, had never become clear to civilization. It was red in color and hard as flint, harderthan the rocks it glued together. The tomb was half-round in shape, and its floor was a projecting shelf of cliff rock.Wallace unearthed bits of pottery, bone and finely braided rope, all of which, to our great disappointment, crumbled todust in our fingers. In the case of the rope, Wallace assured us, this was a sign of remarkable antiquity.

In the next mile we traversed, we found dozens of these old cells, all demolished except a few feet of the walls, alldespoiled of their one-time possessions. Wallace thought these depredations were due to Indians of our own time.Suddenly we came upon Jones, standing under a cliff, with his neck craned to a desperate angle.

"Now, what's that?" demanded he, pointing upward.

High on the cliff wall appeared a small, round protuberance. It was of the unmistakably red color of the othertombs; and Wallace, more excited than he had been in the cougar chase, said it was a sepulcher, and he believed it hadnever been opened.

From an elevated point of rock, as high up as I could well climb, I decided both questions with my glass. The tombresembled nothing so much as a mud-wasp's nest, high on a barn wall. The fact that it had never been broken openquite carried Wallace away with enthusiasm.

"This is no mean discovery, let me tell you that," he declared. "I am familiar with the Aztec, Toltec and Puebloruins, and here I find no similarity. Besides, we are out of their latitude. An ancient race of people--very ancient indeedlived in this canyon. How long ago, it is impossible to tell."

"They must have been birds," said the practical Jones. "Now, how'd that tomb ever get there? Look at it, willyou?"

As near as we could ascertain, it was three hundred feet from the ground below, five hundred from the rim wallabove, and could not possibly have been approached from the top. Moreover, the cliff wall was as smooth as a wall ofhuman make.

"There's another one," called out Jones.

"Yes, and I see another; no doubt there are many of them," replied Wallace. "In my mind, only one thing possibleaccounts for their position. You observe they appear to be about level with each other. Well, once the Canyon floor ranalong that line, and in the ages gone by it has lowered, washed away by the rains."

This conception staggered us, but it was the only one conceivable. No doubt we all thought at the same time ofthe little rainfall in that arid section of Arizona.

"How many years?" queried Jones.

"Years! What are years?" said Wallace. "Thousands of years, ages have passed since the race who built thesetombs lived."

Some persuasion was necessary to drag our scientific friend from the spot, where obviously helpless to doanything else, he stood and gazed longingly at the isolated tombs. The canyon widened as we proceeded; andhundreds of points that invited inspection, such as overhanging shelves of rock, dark fissures, caverns and ruins hadto be passed by, for lack of time.

Still, a more interesting and important discovery was to come, and the pleasure and honor of it fell to me. My eyeswere sharp and peculiarly farsighted--the Indian sight, Jones assured me; and I kept them searching the walls in suchplaces as my companions overlooked. Presently, under a large, bulging bluff, I saw a dark spot, which took the shape ofa figure. This figure, I recollected, had been presented to my sight more than once, and now it stopped me. The hardclimb up the slippery stones was fatiguing, but I did not hesitate, for I was determined to know. Once upon the ledge, Ilet out a yell that quickly set my companions in my direction. The figure I had seen was a dark, red devil, a paintedimage, rude, unspeakably wild, crudely executed, but painted by the hand of man. The whole surface of the cliff wallbore figures of all shapes--men, mammals, birds and strange devices, some in red paint, mostly in yellow. Some showedthe wear of time; others were clear and sharp.

Wallace puffed up to me, but he had wind enough left for another whoop. Jones puffed up also, and seeing thefirst thing a rude sketch of what might have been a deer or a buffalo, he commented thus: "Darn me if I ever saw ananimal like that? Boys, this is a find, sure as you're born. Because not even the Piutes ever spoke of these figures. Idoubt if they know they're here. And the cowboys and wranglers, what few ever get by here in a hundred years, neversaw these things. Beats anything I ever saw on the Mackenzie, or anywhere else."

The meaning of some devices was as mystical as that of others was clear. Two blood-red figures of men, the largerdragging the smaller by the hair, while he waved aloft a blood-red hatchet or club, left little to conjecture. Here was theold battle of men, as old as life. Another group, two figures of which resembled the foregoing in form and action,battling over a prostrate form rudely feminine in outline, attested to an age when men were as susceptible as they are inmodern times, but more forceful and original. An odd yellow Indian waved aloft a red hand, which striking picturesuggested the idea that he was an ancient Macbeth, listening to the knocking at the gate. There was a characterrepresenting a great chief, before whom many figures lay prostrate, evidently slain or subjugated. Large red paintings,in the shape of bats, occupied prominent positions, and must have represented gods or devils. Armies of marching mentold of that blight of nations old or young--war. These, and birds unnamable, and beasts unclassable, with dots andmarks and hieroglyphics, recorded the history of a bygone people. Symbols they were of an era that had gone into thedim past, leaving only these marks, {Symbols recording the history of a bygone people.} forever unintelligible; yetwhile they stood, century after century, ineffaceable, reminders of the glory, the mystery, the sadness of life.

"How could paint of any kind last so long? asked Jones, shaking his head doubtfully.

"That is the unsolvable mystery," returned Wallace. "But the records are there. I am absolutely sure the paintingsare at least a thousand years old. I have never seen any tombs or paintings similar to them. Snake Gulch is a find, and Ishall some day study its wonders."

Sundown caught us within sight of Oak Spring, and we soon trotted into camp to the welcoming chorus of thehounds. Frank and the others had reached the cabin some hours before. Supper was steaming on the hot coals with adelicious fragrance.

Then came the pleasantest time of the day, after a long chase or jaunt--the silent moments, watching the glowingembers of the fire; the speaking moments when a red-blooded story rang clear and true; the twilight moments, when thewood-smoke smelled sweet.

Jones seemed unusually thoughtful. I had learned that this preoccupation in him meant the stirring of old

associations, and I waited silently. By and by Lawson snored mildly in a corner; Jim and Frank crawled into theirblankets, and all was still. Wallace smoked his Indian pipe and hunted in firelit dreams.

"Boys," said our leader finally, "somehow the echoes dying away in that cave reminded me of the mourn of the bigwhite wolves in the Barren Lands."

Wallace puffed huge clouds of white smoke, and I waited, knowing that I was to hear at last the story of theColonel's great adventure in the Northland.

CHAPTER 8.

NAZA! NAZA! NAZA!

It was a waiting day at Fort Chippewayan. The lonesome, far-northern Hudson's Bay Trading Post seldom sawsuch life. Tepees dotted the banks of the Slave River and lines of blanketed Indians paraded its shores. Near the boatlanding a group of chiefs, grotesque in semi-barbaric, semicivilized splendor, but black-browed, austere-eyed, stood insavage dignity with folded arms and high-held heads. Lounging on the grassy bank were white men, traders, trappersand officials of the post.

All eyes were on the distant curve of the river where, as it lost itself in a fine-fringed bend of dark green, white-glinting waves danced and fluttered. A June sky lay blue in the majestic stream; ragged, spear-topped, dense greentrees massed down to the water; beyond rose bold, bald-knobbed hills, in remote purple relief.

A long Indian arm stretched south. The waiting eyes discerned a black speck on the green, and watched it grow. Aflatboat, with a man standing to the oars, bore down swiftly.

Not a red hand, nor a white one, offered to help the voyager in the difficult landing. The oblong, clumsy, heavilyladen boat surged with the current and passed the dock despite the boatman's efforts. He swung his craft in belowupon a bar and roped it fast to a tree. The Indians crowded above him on the bank. The boatman raised his powerfulform erect, lifted a bronzed face which seemed set in craggy hardness, and cast from narrow eyes a keen, cool glanceon those above. The silvery gleam in his fair hair told of years.

Silence, impressive as it was ominous, broke only to the rattle of camping paraphernalia, which the voyager threwto a level, grassy bench on the bank. Evidently this unwelcome visitor had journeyed from afar, and his boat, sunk deepinto the water with its load of barrels, boxes and bags, indicated that the journey had only begun. Significant, too, werea couple of long Winchester rifles shining on a tarpaulin.

The cold-faced crowd stirred and parted to permit the passage of a tall, thin, gray personage of official bearing, ina faded military coat.

"Are you the musk-ox hunter?" he asked, in tones that contained no welcome.

The boatman greeted this peremptory interlocutor with a cool laugh--a strange laugh, in which the muscles of hisface appeared not to play.

"Yes, I am the man," he said.

"The chiefs of the Chippewayan and Great Slave tribes have been apprised of your coming. They have heldcouncil and are here to speak with you."

At a motion from the commandant, the line of chieftains piled down to the level bench and formed a half-circlebefore the voyager. To a man who had stood before grim Sitting Bull and noble Black Thunder of the Sioux, and facedthe falcon-eyed Geronimo, and glanced over the sights of a rifle at gorgeous-feathered, wild, free Comanches, this semi-circle of savages--lords of the north--was a sorry comparison. Bedaubed and betrinketed, slouchy and slovenly, theselow-statured chiefs belied in appearance their scorn-bright eyes and lofty mien. They made a sad group.

One who spoke in unintelligible language, rolled out a haughty, sonorous voice over the listening multitude.

When he had finished, a half-breed interpreter, in the dress of a white man, spoke at a signal from the commandant.

"He says listen to the great orator of the Chippewayan. He has summoned all the chiefs of the tribes south ofGreat Slave Lake. He has held council. The cunning of the pale-face, who comes to take the musk-oxen, is well known.Let the pale-face hunter return to his own hunting-grounds; let him turn his face from the north. Never will the chiefspermit the white man to take musk-oxen alive from their country. The Ageter, the Musk-ox, is their god. He gives themfood and fur. He will never come back if he is taken away, and the reindeer will follow him. The chiefs and their peoplewould starve. They command the pale-face hunter to go back. They cry Naza! Naza! Naza!"

"Say, for a thousand miles I've heard that word Naza!" returned the hunter, with mingled curiosity and disgust. "AtEdmonton Indian runners started ahead of me, and every village I struck the redskins would crowd round me and anold chief would harangue at me, and motion me back, and point north with Naza! Naza! Naza! What does it mean?"

"No white man knows; no Indian will tell," answered the interpreter. "The traders think it means the Great Slave,the North Star, the North Spirit, the North Wind, the North Lights and the musk-ox god."

"Well, say to the chiefs to tell Ageter I have been four moons on the way after some of his little Ageters, and I'mgoing to keep on after them."

"Hunter, you are most unwise," broke in the commandant, in his officious voice. "The Indians will never permityou to take a musk-ox alive from the north. They worship him, pray to him. It is a wonder you have not been stopped."

"Who'll stop me?"

"The Indians. They will kill you if you do not turn back."

"Faugh! to tell an American plainsman that!" The hunter paused a steady moment, with his eyelids narrowing overslits of blue fire. "There is no law to keep me out, nothing but Indian superstition and Naza! And the greed of theHudson's Bay people. I am an old fox, not to be fooled by pretty baits. For years the officers of this fur-tradingcompany have tried to keep out explorers. Even Sir John Franklin, an Englishman, could not buy food of them. Thepolicy of the company is to side with the Indians, to keep out traders and trappers. Why? So they can keep on cheatingthe poor savages out of clothing and food by trading a few trinkets and blankets, a little tobacco and rum for millions ofdollars worth of furs. Have I failed to hire man after man, Indian after Indian, not to know why I cannot get a helper?Have I, a plainsman, come a thousand miles alone to be scared by you, or a lot of craven Indians? Have I beendreaming of musk-oxen for forty years, to slink south now, when I begin to feel the north? Not I."

Deliberately every chief, with the sound of a hissing snake, spat in the hunter's face. He stood immovable whilethey perpetrated the outrage, then calmly wiped his cheeks, and in his strange, cool voice, addressed the interpreter.

"Tell them thus they show their true qualities, to insult in council. Tell them they are not chiefs, but dogs. Tell themthey are not even squaws, only poor, miserable starved dogs. Tell them I turn my back on them. Tell them the palefacehas fought real chiefs, fierce, bold, like eagles, and he turns his back on dogs. Tell them he is the one who could teachthem to raise the musk-oxen and the reindeer, and to keep out the cold and the wolf. But they are blinded. Tell them thehunter goes north."

Through the council of chiefs ran a low mutter, as of gathering thunder.

True to his word, the hunter turned his back on them. As he brushed by, his eye caught a gaunt savage slippingfrom the boat. At the hunter's stern call, the Indian leaped ashore, and started to run. He had stolen a parcel, and wouldhave succeeded in eluding its owner but for an unforeseen obstacle, as striking as it was unexpected.

A white man of colossal stature had stepped in the thief's passage, and laid two great hands on him. Instantly theparcel flew from the Indian, and he spun in the air to fall into the river with a sounding splash. Yells signaled thesurprise and alarm caused by this unexpected incident. The Indian frantically swam to the shore. Whereupon thechampion of the stranger in a strange land lifted a bag, which gave forth a musical clink of steel, and throwing it withthe camp articles on the grassy bench, he extended a huge, friendly hand.

"My name is Rea," he said, in deep, cavernous tones.

"Mine is Jones," replied the hunter, and right quickly did he grip the proffered hand. He saw in Rea a giant, ofwhom he was but a stunted shadow. Six and one-half feet Rea stood, with yard-wide shoulders, a hulk of bone andbrawn. His ponderous, shaggy head rested on a bull neck. His broad face, with its low forehead, its close-shut mastiff

under jaw, its big, opaque eyes, pale and cruel as those of a jaguar, marked him a man of terrible brute force.

"Free-trader!" called the commandant "Better think twice before you join fortunes with the musk-ox hunter."

"To hell with you an' your rantin', dog-eared redskins!" cried Rea. "I've run agin a man of my own kind, a man ofmy own country, an' I'm goin' with him."

With this he thrust aside some encroaching, gaping Indians so unconcernedly and ungently that they sprawledupon the grass.

Slowly the crowd mounted and once more lined the bank.

Jones realized that by some late-turning stroke of fortune, he had fallen in with one of the few free-traders of theprovince. These free-traders, from the very nature of their calling, which was to defy the fur company, and to trap andtrade on their own account--were a hardy and intrepid class of men. Rea's worth to Jones exceeded that of a dozenordinary men. He knew the ways of the north, the language of the tribes, the habits of animals, the handling of dogs,the uses of food and fuel. Moreover, it soon appeared that he was a carpenter and blacksmith.

"There's my kit," he said, dumping the contents of his bag. It consisted of a bunch of steel traps, some tools, abroken ax, a box of miscellaneous things such as trappers used, and a few articles of flannel. "Thievin' redskins," headded, in explanation of his poverty. "Not much of an outfit. But I'm the man for you. Besides, I had a pal onct whoknew you on the plains, called you 'Buff' Jones. Old Jim Bent he was."

"I recollect Jim," said Jones. "He went down in Custer's last charge. So you were Jim's pal. That'd be arecommendation if you needed one. But the way you chucked the Indian overboard got me."

Rea soon manifested himself as a man of few words and much action. With the planks Jones had on board heheightened the stern and bow of the boat to keep out the beating waves in the rapids; he fashioned a steering-gear anda less awkward set of oars, and shifted the cargo so as to make more room in the craft.

"Buff, we're in for a storm. Set up a tarpaulin an' make a fire. We'll pretend to camp to-night. These Indians won'tdream we'd try to run the river after dark, and we'll slip by under cover."

The sun glazed over; clouds moved up from the north; a cold wind swept the tips of the spruces, and raincommenced to drive in gusts. By the time it was dark not an Indian showed himself. They were housed from the storm.Lights twinkled in the teepees and the big log cabins of the trading company. Jones scouted round till pitchy blacknight, when a freezing, pouring blast sent him back to the protection of the tarpaulin. When he got there he found thatRea had taken it down and awaited him. "Off!" said the free-trader; and with no more noise than a drifting feather theboat swung into the current and glided down till the twinkling fires no longer accentuated the darkness.

By night the river, in common with all swift rivers, had a sullen voice, and murmured its hurry, its restraint, itsmenace, its meaning. The two boat-men, one at the steering gear, one at the oars, faced the pelting rain and watched thedim, dark line of trees. The craft slid noiselessly onward into the gloom.

And into Jones's ears, above the storm, poured another sound, a steady, muffled rumble, like the roll of giantchariot wheels. It had come to be a familiar roar to him, and the only thing which, in his long life of hazard, had eversent the cold, prickling, tight shudder over his warm skin. Many times on the Athabasca that rumble had presaged thedangerous and dreaded rapids.

"Hell Bend Rapids!" shouted Rea. "Bad water, but no rocks."

The rumble expanded to a roar, the roar to a boom that charged the air with heaviness, with a dreamy burr. Thewhole indistinct world appeared to be moving to the lash of wind, to the sound of rain, to the roar of the river. The boatshot down and sailed aloft, met shock on shock, breasted leaping dim white waves, and in a hollow, unearthly blend ofwatery sounds, rode on and on, buffeted, tossed, pitched into a black chaos that yet gleamed with obscure shrouds oflight. Then the convulsive stream shrieked out a last defiance, changed its course abruptly to slow down and drownthe sound of rapids in muffling distance. Once more the craft swept on smoothly, to the drive of the wind and the rushof the rain.

By midnight the storm cleared. Murky cloud split to show shining, blue-white stars and a fitful moon, that silveredthe crests of the spruces and sometimes hid like a gleaming, black-threaded peak behind the dark branches.

Jones, a plainsman all his days, wonderingly watched the moon-blanched water. He saw it shade and darken undershadowy walls of granite, where it swelled with hollow song and gurgle. He heard again the far-off rumble, faint on thenight. High cliff banks appeared, walled out the mellow, light, and the river suddenly narrowed. Yawning holes,whirlpools of a second, opened with a gurgling suck and raced with the boat.

On the craft flew. Far ahead, a long, declining plane of jumping frosted waves played dark and white with themoonbeams. The Slave plunged to his freedom, down his riven, stone-spiked bed, knowing no patient eddy, and white-wreathed his dark shiny rocks in spume and spray.

CHAPTER 9.

THE LAND OF THE MUSK-OX

A far cry it was from bright June at Port Chippewayan to dim October on Great Slave Lake.

Two long, laborious months Rea and Jones threaded the crooked shores of the great inland sea, to halt at theextreme northern end, where a plunging rivulet formed the source of a river. Here they found a stone chimney andfireplace standing among the darkened, decayed ruins of a cabin.

"We mustn't lose no time," said Rea. "I feel the winter in the wind. An' see how dark the days are gettin' on us."

"I'm for hunting musk-oxen," replied Jones.

"Man, we're facin' the northern night; we're in the land of the midnight sun. Soon we'll be shut in for sevenmonths. A cabin we want, an' wood, an' meat."

A forest of stunted spruce trees edged on the lake, and soon its dreary solitudes rang to the strokes of axes. Thetrees were small and uniform in size. Black stumps protruded, here and there, from the ground, showing work of thesteel in time gone by. Jones observed that the living trees were no larger in diameter than the stumps, and questionedRea in regard to the difference in age.

"Cut twenty-five, mebbe fifty years ago," said the trapper.

"But the living trees are no bigger."

"Trees an' things don't grow fast in the north land."

They erected a fifteen-foot cabin round the stone chimney, roofed it with poles and branches of spruce and a layerof sand. In digging near the fireplace Jones unearthed a rusty file and the head of a whisky keg, upon which was asunken word in unintelligible letters.

"We've found the place," said Rea. "Frank built a cabin here in 1819. An' in 1833 Captain Back wintered here whenhe was in search of Captain Ross of the vessel Fury. It was those explorin' parties thet cut the trees. I seen Indian signout there, made last winter, I reckon; but Indians never cut down no trees."

The hunters completed the cabin, piled cords of firewood outside, stowed away the kegs of dried fish and fruits,the sacks of flour, boxes of crackers, canned meats and vegetables, sugar, salt, coffee, tobacco--all of the cargo; thentook the boat apart and carried it up the bank, which labor took them less than a week.

Jones found sleeping in the cabin, despite the fire, uncomfortably cold, because of the wide chinks between thelogs. It was hardly better than sleeping under the swaying spruces. When he essayed to stop up the crack, a task byno means easy, considering the lack of material--Rea laughed his short "Ho! Ho!" and stopped him with the word,"Wait." Every morning the green ice extended farther out into the lake; the sun paled dim and dimmer; the nights grewcolder. On October 8th the thermometer registered several degrees below zero; it fell a little more next night andcontinued to fall.

"Ho! Ho!" cried Rea. "She's struck the toboggan, an' presently she'll commence to slide. Come on, Buff, we'vework to do."

He caught up a bucket, made for their hole in the ice, rebroke a six-inch layer, the freeze of a few hours, and fillinghis bucket, returned to the cabin. Jones had no inkling of the trapper's intention, and wonderingly he soused his bucketfull of water and followed.

By the time he had reached the cabin, a matter of some thirty or forty good paces, the water no longer splashedfrom his pail, for a thin film of ice prevented. Rea stood fifteen feet from the cabin, his back to the wind, and threw thewater. Some of it froze in the air, most of it froze on the logs. The simple plan of the trapper to incase the cabin with icewas easily divined. All day the men worked, easing only when the cabin resembled a glistening mound. It had not asharp corner nor a crevice. Inside it was warm and snug, and as light as when the chinks were open.

A slight moderation of the weather brought the snow. Such snow! A blinding white flutter of grey flakes, as largeas feathers! All day they rustle softly; all night they swirled, sweeping, seeping brushing against the cabin. "Ho! Ho!"roared Rea. "'Tis good; let her snow, an' the reindeer will migrate. We'll have fresh meat." The sun shone again, but notbrightly. A nipping wind came down out of the frigid north and crusted the snows. The third night following the storm,when the hunters lay snug under their blankets, a commotion outside aroused them.

"Indians," said Rea, "come north for reindeer."

Half the night, shouting and yelling, barking dogs, hauling of sleds and cracking of dried-skin tepees murderedsleep for those in the cabin. In the morning the level plain and edge of the forest held an Indian village. Caribou hides,strung on forked poles, constituted tent-like habitations with no distinguishable doors. Fires smoked in the holes in thesnow. Not till late in the day did any life manifest itself round the tepees, and then a group of children, poorly clad inragged pieces of blankets and skins, gaped at Jones. He saw their pinched, brown faces, staring, hungry eyes, nakedlegs and throats, and noted particularly their dwarfish size. When he spoke they fled precipitously a little way, thenturned. He called again, and all ran except one small lad. Jones went into the cabin and came out with a handful of sugarin square lumps.

"Yellow Knife Indians," said Rea. "A starved tribe! We're in for it."

Jones made motions to the lad, but he remained still, as if transfixed, and his black eyes stared wonderingly.

"Molar nasu (white man good)," said Rea.

The lad came out of his trance and looked back at his companions, who edged nearer. Jones ate a lump of sugar,then handed one to the little Indian. He took it gingerly, put it into his mouth and immediately jumped up and down.

"Hoppiesharnpoolie! Hoppiesharnpoolie!" he shouted to his brothers and sisters. They came on the run.

"Think he means sweet salt," interpreted Rea. "Of course these beggars never tasted sugar."

The band of youngsters trooped round Jones, and after tasting the white lumps, shrieked in such delight that thebraves and squaws shuffled out of the tepees.

In all his days Jones had never seen such miserable Indians. Dirty blankets hid all their person, except stragglingblack hair, hungry, wolfish eyes and moccasined feet. They crowded into the path before the cabin door and mumbledand stared and waited. No dignity, no brightness, no suggestion of friendliness marked this peculiar attitude.

"Starved!" exclaimed Rea. "They've come to the lake to invoke the Great Spirit to send the reindeer. Buff, whateveryou do, don't feed them. If you do, we'll have them on our hands all winter. It's cruel, but, man, we're in the north!"

Notwithstanding the practical trapper's admonition Jones could not resist the pleading of the children. He couldnot stand by and see them starve. After ascertaining there was absolutely nothing to eat in the tepees, he invited thelittle ones into the cabin, and made a great pot of soup, into which he dropped compressed biscuits. The savagechildren were like wildcats. Jones had to call in Rea to assist him in keeping the famished little aborigines from tearingeach other to pieces. When finally they were all fed, they had to be driven out of the cabin.

"That's new to me," said Jones. "Poor little beggars!"

Rea doubtfully shook his shaggy head.

Next day Jones traded with the Yellow Knives. He had a goodly supply of baubles, besides blankets, gloves andboxes of canned goods, which he had brought for such trading. He secured a dozen of the large-boned, white and

black Indian dogs, huskies, Rea called them--two long sleds with harness and several pairs of snowshoes. This trademade Jones rub his hands in satisfaction, for during all the long journey north he had failed to barter for such cardinalnecessities to the success of his venture.

"Better have doled out the grub to them in rations," grumbled Rea.

Twenty-four hours sufficed to show Jones the wisdom of the trapper's words, for in just that time the crazed,ignorant savages had glutted the generous store of food, which should have lasted them for weeks. The next day theywere begging at the cabin door. Rea cursed and threatened them with his fists, but they returned again and again.

Days passed. All the time, in light and dark, the Indians filled the air with dismal chant and doleful incantations tothe Great Spirit, and the tum! tum! tum! tum! of tomtoms, a specific feature of their wild prayer for food.

But the white monotony of the rolling land and level lake remained unbroken. The reindeer did not come. The daysbecame shorter, dimmer, darker. The mercury kept on the slide.

Forty degrees below zero did not trouble the Indians. They stamped till they dropped, and sang till their voicesvanished, and beat the tomtoms everlastingly. Jones fed the children once each day, against the trapper's advice.

One day, while Rea was absent, a dozen braves succeeded in forcing an entrance, and clamored so fiercely, andthreatened so desperately, that Jones was on the point of giving them food when the door opened to admit Rea.

With a glance he saw the situation. He dropped the bucket he carried, threw the door wide open and commencedaction. Because of his great bulk he seemed slow, but every blow of his sledge-hammer fist knocked a brave against thewall, or through the door into the snow. When he could reach two savages at once, by way of diversion, he swungtheir heads together with a crack. They dropped like dead things. Then he handled them as if they were sacks of corn,pitching them out into the snow. In two minutes the cabin was clear. He banged the door and slipped the bar in place.

"Buff, I'm goin' to get mad at these thievin' red, skins some day," he said gruffly. The expanse of his chest heavedslightly, like the slow swell of a calm ocean, but there was no other indication of unusual exertion.

Jones laughed, and again gave thanks for the comradeship of this strange man.

Shortly afterward, he went out for wood, and as usual scanned the expanse of the lake. The sun shone mistier andwarmer, and frost feathers floated in the air. Sky and sun and plain and lake--all were gray. Jones fancied he saw adistant moving mass of darker shade than the gray background. He called the trapper.

"Caribou," said Rea instantly. "The vanguard of the migration. Hear the Indians! Hear their cry: "Aton! Aton!"they mean reindeer. The idiots have scared the herd with their infernal racket, an' no meat will they get. The caribou willkeep to the ice, an' man or Indian can't stalk them there."

For a few moments his companion surveyed the lake and shore with a plainsman's eye, then dashed within, toreappear with a Winchester in each hand. Through the crowd of bewailing, bemoaning Indians; he sped, to the low,dying bank. The hard crust of snow upheld him. The gray cloud was a thousand yards out upon the lake and movingsoutheast. If the caribou did not swerve from this course they would pass close to a projecting point of land, a half-mileup the lake. So, keeping a wary eye upon them, the hunter ran swiftly. He had not hunted antelope and buffalo on theplains all his life without learning how to approach moving game. As long as the caribou were in action, they could nottell whether he moved or was motionless. In order to tell if an object was inanimate or not, they must stop to see, ofwhich fact the keen hunter took advantage. Suddenly he saw the gray mass slow down and bunch up. He stoppedrunning, to stand like a stump. When the reindeer moved again, he moved, and when they slackened again, he stoppedand became motionless. As they kept to their course, he worked gradually closer and closer. Soon he distinguishedgray, bobbing heads. When the leader showed signs of halting in his slow trot the hunter again became a statue. Hesaw they were easy to deceive; and, daringly confident of success, he encroached on the ice and closed up the gap tillnot more than two hundred yards separated him from the gray, bobbing, antlered mass.

Jones dropped on one knee. A moment only his eyes lingered admiringly on the wild and beautiful spectacle; thenhe swept one of the rifles to a level. Old habit made the little beaded sight cover first the stately leader. Bang! The graymonarch leaped straight forward, forehoofs up, antlered head back, to fall dead with a crash. Then for a few momentsthe Winchester spat a deadly stream of fire, and when emptied was thrown down for the other gun, which in the steady,sure hands of the hunter belched death to the caribou.

The herd rushed on, leaving the white surface of the lake gray with a struggling, kicking, bellowing heap. WhenJones reached the caribou he saw several trying to rise on crippled legs. With his knife he killed these, not withoutsome hazard to himself. Most of the fallen ones were already dead, and the others soon lay still. Beautiful graycreatures they were, almost white, with wide-reaching, symmetrical horns.

A medley of yells arose from the shore, and Rea appeared running with two sleds, with the whole tribe of YellowKnives pouring out of the forest behind him.

"Buff, you're jest what old Jim said you was," thundered Rea, as he surveyed the gray pile. "Here's winter meat, an'I'd not have given a biscuit for all the meat I thought you'd get."

"Thirty shots in less than thirty seconds," said Jones, "An' I'll bet every ball I sent touched hair. How manyreindeer?"

"Twenty! twenty! Buff, or I've forgot how to count. I guess mebbe you can't handle them shootin' arms. Ho! herecomes the howlin' redskins."

Rea whipped out a bowie knife and began disemboweling the reindeer. He had not proceeded far in his task whenthe crazed savages were around him. Every one carried a basket or receptacle, which he swung aloft, and they sang,prayed, rejoiced on their knees. Jones turned away from the sickening scenes that convinced him these savages werelittle better than cannibals. Rea cursed them, and tumbled them over, and threatened them with the big bowie. Analtercation ensued, heated on his side, frenzied on theirs. Thinking some treachery might befall his comrade, Jones raninto the thick of the group.

"Share with them, Rea, share with them."

Whereupon the giant hauled out ten smoking carcasses. Bursting into a babel of savage glee and tumbling overone another, the Indians pulled the caribou to the shore.

"Thievin' fools," growled Rea, wiping the sweat from his brow. "Said they'd prevailed on the Great Spirit to sendthe reindeer. Why, they'd never smelled warm meat but for you. Now, Buff, they'll gorge every hair, hide an' hoof of theirshare in less than a week. Thet's the last we do for the damned cannibals. Didn't you see them eatin' of the raw innards?--faugh! I'm calculatin' we'll see no more reindeer. It's late for the migration. The big herd has driven southward. Butwe're lucky, thanks to your prairie trainin'. Come on now with the sleds, or we'll have a pack of wolves to fight."

By loading three reindeer on each sled, the hunters were not long in transporting them to the cabin. "Buff, thereain't much doubt about them keepin' nice and cool," said Rea. "They'll freeze, an' we can skin them when we want."

That night the starved wolf dogs gorged themselves till they could not rise from the snow. Likewise the YellowKnives feasted. How long the ten reindeer might have served the wasteful tribe, Rea and Jones never found out. Thenext day two Indians arrived with dog-trains, and their advent was hailed with another feast, and a pow-wow thatlasted into the night.

"Guess we're goin' to get rid of our blasted hungry neighbors," said Rea, coming in next morning with the waterpail, "An' I'll be durned, Buff, if I don't believe them crazy heathen have been told about you. Them Indians wasmessengers. Grab your gun, an' let's walk over and see."

The Yellow Knives were breaking camp, and the hunters were at once conscious of the difference in their bearing.Rea addressed several braves, but got no reply. He laid his broad hand on the old wrinkled chief, who repulsed him,and turned his back. With a growl, the trapper spun the Indian round, and spoke as many words of the language as heknew. He got a cold response, which ended in the ragged old chief starting up, stretching a long, dark arm northward,and with eyes fixed in fanatical subjection, shouting: "Naza! Naza! Naza!"

"Heathen!" Rea shook his gun in the faces of the messengers. "It'll go bad with you to come Nazain' any longer onour trail. Come, Buff, clear out before I get mad."

When they were once more in the cabin, Rea told Jones that the messengers had been sent to warn the YellowKnives not to aid the white hunters in any way. That night the dogs were kept inside, and the men took turns inwatching. Morning showed a broad trail southward. And with the going of the Yellow Knives the mercury dropped tofifty, and the long, twilight winter night fell.

So with this agreeable riddance and plenty of meat and fuel to cheer them, the hunters sat down in their snug

cabin to wait many months for daylight.

Those few intervals when the wind did not blow were the only times Rea and Jones got out of doors. To theplainsman, new to the north, the dim gray world about him was of exceeding interest. Out of the twilight shone a wan,round, lusterless ring that Rea said was the sun. The silence and desolation were heart-numbing.

"Where are the wolves?" asked Jones of Rea.

"Wolves can't live on snow. They're farther south after caribou, or farther north after musk-ox."

In those few still intervals Jones remained out as long as he dared, with the mercury sinking to -sixty degrees. Heturned from the wonder of the unreal, remote sun, to the marvel in the north--Aurora borealis--ever-present, ever-changing, ever-beautiful! and he gazed in rapt attention.

"Polar lights," said Rea, as if he were speaking of biscuits. "You'll freeze. It's gettin' cold."

Cold it became, to the matter of -seventy degrees. Frost covered the walls of the cabin and the roof, except justover the fire. The reindeer were harder than iron. A knife or an ax or a steel-trap burned as if it had been heated in fire,and stuck to the hand. The hunters experienced trouble in breathing; the air hurt their lungs.

The months dragged. Rea grew more silent day by day, and as he sat before the fire his wide shoulders saggedlower and lower. Jones, unaccustomed to the waiting, the restraint, the barrier of the north, worked on guns, sleds,harness, till he felt he would go mad. Then to save his mind he constructed a windmill of caribou hides and ponderedover it trying to invent, to put into practical use an idea he had once conceived.

Hour after hour he lay under his blankets unable to sleep, and listened to the north wind. Sometimes Rea mumbledin his slumbers; once his giant form started up, and he muttered a woman's name. Shadows from the fire flickered on thewalls, visionary, spectral shadows, cold and gray, fitting the north. At such times he longed with all the power of hissoul to be among those scenes far southward, which he called home. For days Rea never spoke a word, only gazed intothe fire, ate and slept. Jones, drifting far from his real self, feared the strange mood of the trapper and sought to break it,but without avail. More and more he reproached himself, and singularly on the one fact that, as he did not smokehimself, he had brought only a small store of tobacco. Rea, inordinate and inveterate smoker, had puffed away all theweed in clouds of white, then had relapsed into gloom.

CHAPTER 10.

SUCCESS AND FAILURE

At last the marvel in the north dimmed, the obscure gray shade lifted, the hope in the south brightened, and themercury climbed reluctantly, with a tyrant's hate to relinquish power.

Spring weather at twenty-five below zero! On April 12th a small band of Indians made their appearance. Of theDog tribe were they, an offcast of the Great Slaves, according to Rea, and as motley, starring and starved as the YellowKnives. But they were friendly, which presupposed ignorance of the white hunters, and Rea persuaded the strongestbrave to accompany them as guide northward after musk-oxen.

On April 16th, having given the Indians several caribou carcasses, and assuring them that the cabin was protectedby white spirits, Rea and Jones, each with sled and train of dogs, started out after their guide, who was similarlyequipped, over the glistening snow toward the north. They made sixty miles the first day, and pitched their Indian tepeeon the shores of Artillery Lake. Traveling northeast, they covered its white waste of one hundred miles in two days.Then a day due north, over rolling, monotonously snowy plain; devoid of rock, tree or shrub, brought them into acountry of the strangest, queerest little spruce trees, very slender, and none of them over fifteen feet in height. Aprimeval forest of saplings.

"Ditchen Nechila," said the guide.

"Land of Sticks Little," translated Rea.

An occasional reindeer was seen and numerous foxes and hares trotted off into the woods, evincing morecuriosity than fear. All were silver white, even the reindeer, at a distance, taking the hue of the north. Once a beautifulcreature, unblemished as the snow it trod, ran up a ridge and stood watching the hunters. It resembled a monster dog,only it was inexpressibly more wild looking.

"Ho! Ho! there you are!" cried Rea, reaching for his Winchester. "Polar wolf! Them's the white devils we'll havehell with."

As if the wolf understood, he lifted his white, sharp head and uttered a bark or howl that was like nothing so muchas a haunting, unearthly mourn. The animal then merged into the white, as if he were really a spirit of the world whencehis cry seemed to come.

In this ancient forest of youthful appearing trees, the hunters cut firewood to the full carrying capacity of thesleds. For five days the Indian guide drove his dogs over the smooth crust, and on the sixth day, about noon, halting ina hollow, he pointed to tracks in the snow and called out: "Ageter! Ageter! Ageter!"

The hunters saw sharply defined hoof-marks, not unlike the tracks of reindeer, except that they were longer. Thetepee was set up on the spot and the dogs unharnessed.

The Indian led the way with the dogs, and Rea and Jones followed, slipping over the hard crust without sinking inand traveling swiftly. Soon the guide, pointing, again let out the cry: "Ageter!" at the same moment loosing the dogs.

Some few hundred yards down the hollow, a number of large black animals, not unlike the shaggy, humpy buffalo,lumbered over the snow. Jones echoed Rea's yell, and broke into a run, easily distancing the puffing giant.

The musk-oxen squared round to the dogs, and were soon surrounded by the yelping pack. Jones came up to findsix old bulls uttering grunts of rage and shaking ram-like horns at their tormentors. Notwithstanding that for Jones thiswas the cumulation of years of desire, the crowning moment, the climax and fruition of long-harbored dreams, he haltedbefore the tame and helpless beasts, with joy not unmixed with pain.

"It will be murder!" he exclaimed. "It's like shooting down sheep."

Rea came crashing up behind him and yelled, "Get busy. We need fresh meat, an' I want the skins."

The bulls succumbed to well-directed shots, and the Indian and Rea hurried back to camp with the dogs to fetchthe sleds, while Jones examined with warm interest the animals he had wanted to see all his life. He found the largestbull approached within a third of the size of a buffalo. He was of a brownish-black color and very like a large, woollyram. His head was broad, with sharp, small ears; the horns had wide and flattened bases and lay flat on the head, to rundown back of the eyes, then curve forward to a sharp point. Like the bison, the musk ox had short, heavy limbs,covered with very long hair, and small, hard hoofs with hairy tufts inside the curve of bone, which probably served aspads or checks to hold the hoof firm on ice. His legs seemed out of proportion to his body.

Two musk-oxen were loaded on a sled and hauled to camp in one trip. Skinning them was but short work for suchexpert hands. All the choice cuts of meat were saved. No time was lost in broiling a steak, which they found sweet andjuicy, with a flavor of musk that was disagreeable.

"Now, Rea, for the calves," exclaimed Jones, "And then we're homeward bound."

"I hate to tell this redskin," replied Rea. "He'll be like the others. But it ain't likely he'd desert us here. He's far fromhis base, with nothin' but thet old musket." Rea then commanded the attention of the brave, and began to mangle theGreat Slave and Yellow Knife languages. Of this mixture Jones knew but few words. "Ageter nechila," which Rea keptrepeating, he knew, however, meant "musk-oxen little."

The guide stared, suddenly appeared to get Rea's meaning, then vigorously shook his head and gazed at Jones infear and horror. Following this came an action as singular as inexplicable. Slowly rising, he faced the north, lifted hishand, and remained statuesque in his immobility. Then he began deliberately packing his blankets and traps on hissled, which had not been unhitched from the train of dogs.

"Jackoway ditchen hula," he said, and pointed south.

"Jackoway ditchen hula," echoed Rea. "The damned Indian says 'wife sticks none.' He's goin' to quit us. What doyou think of thet? His wife's out of wood. Jackoway out of wood, an' here we are two days from the Arctic Ocean.

Jones, the damned heathen don't go back!"

The trapper coolly cocked his rifle. The savage, who plainly saw and understood the action, never flinched. Heturned his breast to Rea, and there was nothing in his demeanor to suggest his relation to a craven tribe.

"Good heavens, Rea, don't kill him!" exclaimed Jones, knocking up the leveled rifle.

"Why not, I'd like to know?" demanded Rea, as if he were considering the fate of a threatening beast. "I reckon it'dbe a bad thing for us to let him go."

"Let him go," said Jones. "We are here on the ground. We have dogs and meat. We'll get our calves and reach thelake as soon as he does, and we might get there before."

"Mebbe we will," growled Rea.

No vacillation attended the Indian's mood. From friendly guide, he had suddenly been transformed into a dark,sullen savage. He refused the musk-ox meat offered by Jones, and he pointed south and looked at the white hunters asif he asked them to go with him. Both men shook their heads in answer. The savage struck his breast a sounding blowand with his index finger pointed at the white of the north, he shouted dramatically: "Naza! Naza! Naza!"

He then leaped upon his sled, lashed his dogs into a run, and without looking back disappeared over a ridge.

The musk-ox hunters sat long silent. Finally Rea shook his shaggy locks and roared. "Ho! Ho! Jackoway out ofwood! Jackoway out of wood! Jackoway out of wood!"

On the day following the desertion, Jones found tracks to the north of the camp, making a broad trail in whichwere numerous little imprints that sent him flying back to get Rea and the dogs. Muskoxen in great numbers hadpassed in the night, and Jones and Rea had not trailed the herd a mile before they had it in sight. When the dogs burstinto full cry, the musk-oxen climbed a high knoll and squared about to give battle.

"Calves! Calves! Calves!" cried Jones.

"Hold back! Hold back! Thet's a big herd, an' they'll show fight."

As good fortune would have it, the herd split up into several sections, and one part, hard pressed by the dogs, randown the knoll, to be cornered under the lee of a bank. The hunters, seeing this small number, hurried upon them tofind three cows and five badly frightened little calves backed against the bank of snow, with small red eyes fastened onthe barking, snapping dogs.

To a man of Jones's experience and skill, the capturing of the calves was a ridiculously easy piece of work. Thecows tossed their heads, watched the dogs, and forgot their young. The first cast of the lasso settled over the neck ofa little fellow. Jones hauled him out over the slippery snow and laughed as he bound the hairy legs. In less time than hehad taken to capture one buffalo calf, with half the escort, he had all the little musk-oxen bound fast. Then he signaledthis feat by pealing out an Indian yell of victory.

"Buff, we've got 'em," cried Rea; "An' now for the hell of it gettin' 'em home. I'll fetch the sleds. You might as welldown thet best cow for me. I can use another skin."

Of all Jones's prizes of captured wild beasts--which numbered nearly every species common to western NorthAmerica--he took greatest pride in the little musk-oxen. In truth, so great had been his passion to capture some of theserare and inaccessible mammals, that he considered the day's world the fulfillment of his life's purpose. He was happy.Never had he been so delighted as when, the very evening of their captivity, the musk-oxen, evincing no particular fearof him, began to dig with sharp hoofs into the snow for moss. And they found moss, and ate it, which solved Jones'sgreatest problem. He had hardly dared to think how to feed them, and here they were picking sustenance out of thefrozen snow.

"Rea, will you look at that! Rea, will you look at that!" he kept repeating. "See, they're hunting, feed."

And the giant, with his rare smile, watched him play with the calves. They were about two and a half feet high, andresembled long-haired sheep. The ears and horns were undiscernible, and their color considerably lighter than that ofthe matured beasts.

"No sense of fear of man," said the life-student of animals. "But they shrink from the dogs."

In packing for the journey south, the captives were strapped on the sleds. This circumstance necessitated asacrifice of meat and wood, which brought grave, doubtful shakes of Rea's great head.

Days of hastening over the icy snow, with short hours for sleep and rest, passed before the hunters awoke to theconsciousness that they were lost. The meat they had packed had gone to feed themselves and the dogs. Only a fewsticks of wood were left.

"Better kill a calf, an' cook meat while we've got little wood left," suggested Rea.

"Kill one of my calves? I'd starve first!" cried Jones.

The hungry giant said no more.

They headed southwest. All about them glared the grim monotony of the arctics. No rock or bush or tree made awelcome mark upon the hoary plain Wonderland of frost, white marble desert, infinitude of gleaming silences!

Snow began to fall, making the dogs flounder, obliterating the sun by which they traveled. They camped to waitfor clearing weather. Biscuits soaked in tea made their meal. At dawn Jones crawled out of the tepee. The snow hadceased. But where were the dogs? He yelled in alarm. Then little mounds of white, scattered here and there becameanimated, heaved, rocked and rose to dogs. Blankets of snow had been their covering.

Rea had ceased his "Jackoway out of wood," for a reiterated question: "Where are the wolves?"

"Lost," replied Jones in hollow humor.

Near the close of that day, in which they had resumed travel, from the crest of a ridge they descried a long, low,undulating dark line. It proved to be the forest of "Little sticks," where, with grateful assurance of fire and of soonfinding their old trail, they made camp.

"We've four biscuits left, an' enough tea for one drink each," said Rea. "I calculate we're two hundred miles fromGreat Slave Lake. Where are the wolves?"

At that moment the night wind wafted through the forest a long, haunting mourn. The calves shifted uneasily; thedogs raised sharp noses to sniff the air, and Rea, settling back against a tree, cried out: "Ho! Ho!" Again the savagesound, a keen wailing note with the hunger of the northland in it, broke the cold silence. "You'll see a pack of realwolves in a minute," said Rea. Soon a swift pattering of feet down a forest slope brought him to his feet with a curse toreach a brawny hand for his rifle. White streaks crossed the black of the tree trunks; then indistinct forms, the color ofsnow, swept up, spread out and streaked to and fro. Jones thought the great, gaunt, pure white beasts the spectralwolves of Rea's fancy, for they were silent, and silent wolves must belong to dreams only.

"Ho! Ho!" yelled Rea. "There's green-fire eyes for you, Buff. Hell itself ain't nothin' to these white devils. Get thecalves in the tepee, an' stand ready to loose the dogs, for we've got to fight."

Raising his rifle he opened fire upon the white foe. A struggling, rustling sound followed the shots. But whether itwas the threshing about of wolves dying in agony, or the fighting of the fortunate ones over those shot, could not beascertained in the confusion.

Following his example Jones also fired rapidly on the other side of the tepee. The same inarticulate, silentlyrustling wrestle succeeded this volley.

"Wait!" cried Rea. "Be sparin' of cartridges."

The dogs strained at their chains and bravely bayed the wolves. The hunters heaped logs and brush on the fire,which, blazing up, sent a bright light far into the woods. On the outer edge of that circle moved the white, restless,gliding forms.

"They're more afraid of fire than of us," said Jones.

So it proved. When the fire burned and crackled they kept well in the background. The hunters had a long respitefrom serious anxiety, during which time they collected all the available wood at hand. But at midnight, when this had

been mostly consumed, the wolves grew bold again.

"Have you any shots left for the 45-90, besides what's in the magazine?" asked Rea.

"Yes, a good handful."

"Well, get busy."

With careful aim Jones emptied the magazine into the gray, gliding, groping mass. The same rustling, shuffling,almost silent strife ensued.

"Rea, there's something uncanny about those brutes. A silent pack of wolves!"

"Ho! Ho!" rolled the giant's answer through the woods.

For the present the attack appeared to have been effectually checked. The hunters, sparingly adding a little oftheir fast diminishing pile of fuel to the fire, decided to lie down for much needed rest, but not for sleep. How long theylay there, cramped by the calves, listening for stealthy steps, neither could tell; it might have been moments and itmight have been hours. All at once came a rapid rush of pattering feet, succeeded by a chorus of angry barks, then aterrible commingling of savage snarls, growls, snaps and yelps.

"Out!" yelled Rea. "They're on the dogs!"

Jones pushed his cocked rifle ahead of him and straightened up outside the tepee. A wolf, large as a panther andwhite as the gleaming snow, sprang at him. Even as he discharged his rifle, right against the breast of the beast, he sawits dripping jaws, its wicked green eyes, like spurts of fire and felt its hot breath. It fell at his feet and writhed in thedeath struggle. Slender bodies of black and white, whirling and tussling together, sent out fiendish uproar. Rea threw ablazing stick of wood among them, which sizzled as it met the furry coats, and brandishing another he ran into the thickof the fight. Unable to stand the proximity of fire, the wolves bolted and loped off into the woods.

"What a huge brute!" exclaimed Jones, dragging the one he had shot into the light. It was a superb animal, thin,supple, strong, with a coat of frosty fur, very long and fine. Rea began at once to skin it, remarking that he hoped tofind other pelts in the morning.

Though the wolves remained in the vicinity of camp, none ventured near. The dogs moaned and whined; theirrestlessness increased as dawn approached, and when the gray light came, Jones founds that some of them had beenbadly lacerated by the fangs of the wolves. Rea hunted for dead wolves and found not so much as a piece of white fur.

Soon the hunters were speeding southward. Other than a disposition to fight among themselves, the dogsshowed no evil effects of the attack. They were lashed to their best speed, for Rea said the white rangers of the northwould never quit their trail. All day the men listened for the wild, lonesome, haunting mourn. But it came not.

A wonderful halo of white and gold, that Rea called a sun-dog, hung in the sky all afternoon, and dazzlingly brightover the dazzling world of snow circled and glowed a mocking sun, brother of the desert mirage, beautiful illusion,smiling cold out of the polar blue.

The first pale evening star twinkled in the east when the hunters made camp on the shore of Artilery Lake. At duskthe clear, silent air opened to the sound of a long, haunting mourn.

"Ho! Ho!" called Rea. His hoarse, deep voice rang defiance to the foe.

While he built a fire before the tepee, Jones strode up and down, suddenly to whip out his knife and make for thetame little musk-oxen, now digging the snow. Then he wheeled abruptly and held out the blade to Rea.

"What for?" demanded the giant.

"We've got to eat," said Jones. "And I can't kill one of them. I can't, so you do it."

"Kill one of our calves?" roared Rea. "Not till hell freezes over! I ain't commenced to get hungry. Besides, thewolves are going to eat us, calves and all."

Nothing more was said. They ate their last biscuit. Jones packed the calves away in the tepee, and turned to thedogs. All day they had worried him; something was amiss with them, and even as he went among them a fierce fight

broke out. Jones saw it was unusual, for the attacked dogs showed craven fear, and the attacking ones a howling,savage intensity that surprised him. Then one of the vicious brutes rolled his eyes, frothed at the mouth, shudderedand leaped in his harness, vented a hoarse howl and fell back shaking and retching.

"My God! Rea!" cried Jones in horror. "Come here! Look! That dog is dying of rabies! Hydrophobia! The whitewolves have hydrophobia!"

"If you ain't right!" exclaimed Rea. "I seen a dog die of thet onct, an' he acted like this. An' thet one ain't all. Look,Buff! look at them green eyes! Didn't I say the white wolves was hell? We'll have to kill every dog we've got."

Jones shot the dog, and soon afterward three more that manifested signs of the disease. It was an awful situation.To kill all the dogs meant simply to sacrifice his life and Rea's; it meant abandoning hope of ever reaching the cabin.Then to risk being bitten by one of the poisoned, maddened brutes, to risk the most horrible of agonizing deaths--thatwas even worse.

"Rea, we've one chance," cried Jones, with pale face. "Can you hold the dogs, one by one, while muzzle them?"

"Ho! Ho!" replied the giant. Placing his bowie knife between his teeth, with gloved hands he seized and draggedone of the dogs to the campfire. The animal whined and protested, but showed no ill spirit. Jones muzzled his jawstightly with strong cords. Another and another were tied up, then one which tried to snap at Jones was nearly crushedby the giant's grip. The last, a surly brute, broke out into mad ravings the moment he felt the touch of Jones's hands,and writhing, frothing, he snapped Jones's sleeve. Rea jerked him loose and held him in the air with one arm, while withthe other he swung the bowie. They hauled the dead dogs out on the snow, and returning to the fire sat down to awaitthe cry they expected.

Presently, as darkness fastened down tight, it came--the same cry, wild, haunting, mourning. But for hours it wasnot repeated.

"Better rest some," said Rea; "I'll call you if they come."

Jones dropped to sleep as he touched his blankets. Morning dawned for him, to find the great, dark, shadowyfigure of the giant nodding over the fire.

"How's this? Why didn't you call me?" demanded Jones.

"The wolves only fought a little over the dead dogs."

On the instant Jones saw a wolf skulking up the bank. Throwing up his rifle, which he had carried out of the tepee,he took a snap-shot at the beast. It ran off on three legs, to go out of sight over the hank. Jones scrambled up thesteep, slippery place, and upon arriving at the ridge, which took several moments of hard work, he looked everywherefor the wolf. In a moment he saw the animal, standing still some hundred or more paces down a hollow. With the quickreport of Jones's second shot, the wolf fell and rolled over. The hunter ran to the spot to find the wolf was dead. Takinghold of a front paw, he dragged the animal over the snow to camp. Rea began to skin the animal, when suddenly heexclaimed:

"This fellow's hind foot is gone!"

"That's strange. I saw it hanging by the skin as the wolf ran up the bank. I'll look for it."

By the bloody trail on the snow he returned to the place where the wolf had fallen, and thence back to the spotwhere its leg had been broken by the bullet. He discovered no sign of the foot.

"Didn't find it, did you?" said Rea.

"No, and it appears odd to me. The snow is so hard the foot could not have sunk."

"Well, the wolf ate his foot, thet's what," returned Rea. "Look at them teeth marks!"

"Is it possible?" Jones stared at the leg Rea held up.

"Yes, it is. These wolves are crazy at times. You've seen thet. An' the smell of blood, an' nothin' else, mind you, inmy opinion, made him eat his own' foot. We'll cut him open."

Impossible as the thing seemed to Jones--and he could not but believe further evidence of his own' eyes--it waseven stranger to drive a train of mad dogs. Yet that was what Rea and he did, and lashed them, beat them to cover manymiles in the long day's journey. Rabies had broken out in several dogs so alarmingly that Jones had to kill them at theend of the run. And hardly had the sound of the shots died when faint and far away, but clear as a bell, bayed on thewind the same haunting mourn of a trailing wolf.

"Ho! Ho! where are the wolves?" cried Rea.

A waiting, watching, sleepless night followed. Again the hunters faced the south. Hour after hour, riding, running,walking, they urged the poor, jaded, poisoned dogs. At dark they reached the head of Artillery Lake. Rea placed thetepee between two huge stones. Then the hungry hunters, tired, grim, silent, desperate, awaited the familiar cry.

It came on the cold wind, the same haunting mourn, dreadful in its significance.

Absence of fire inspirited the wary wolves. Out of the pale gloom gaunt white forms emerged, agile and stealthy,slipping on velvet-padded feet, closer, closer, closer. The dogs wailed in terror.

"Into the tepee!" yelled Rea.

Jones plunged in after his comrade. The despairing howls of the dogs, drowned in more savage, frightful sounds,knelled one tragedy and foreboded a more terrible one. Jones looked out to see a white mass, like leaping waves of arapid.

"Pump lead into thet!" cried Rea.

Rapidly Jones emptied his rifle into the white fray. The mass split; gaunt wolves leaped high to fall back dead;others wriggled and limped away; others dragged their hind quarters; others darted at the tepee.

"No more cartridges!" yelled Jones.

The giant grabbed the ax, and barred the door of the tepee. Crash! the heavy iron cleaved the skull of the firstbrute. Crash! it lamed the second. Then Rea stood in the narrow passage between the rocks, waiting with uplifted ax. Ashaggy, white demon, snapping his jaws, sprang like a dog. A sodden, thudding blow met him and he slunk awaywithout a cry. Another rabid beast launched his white body at the giant. Like a flash the ax descended. In agony thewolf fell, to spin round and round, running on his hind legs, while his head and shoulders and forelegs remained in thesnow. His back was broken.

Jones crouched in the opening of the tepee, knife in hand. He doubted his senses. This was a nightmare. He sawtwo wolves leap at once. He heard the crash of the ax; he saw one wolf go down and the other slip under the swingingweapon to grasp the giant's hip. Jones's heard the rend of cloth, and then he pounced like a cat, to drive his knife intothe body of the beast. Another nimble foe lunged at Rea, to sprawl broken and limp from the iron. It was a silent fight.The giant shut the way to his comrade and the calves; he made no outcry; he needed but one blow for every beast;magnificent, he wielded death and faced it--silent. He brought the white wild dogs of the north down with lightningblows, and when no more sprang to the attack, down on the frigid silence he rolled his cry: "Ho! Ho!"

"Rea! Rea! how is it with you?" called Jones, climbing out.

"A torn coat--no more, my lad."

Three of the poor dogs were dead; the fourth and last gasped at the hunters and died.

The wintry night became a thing of half-conscious past, a dream to the hunters, manifesting its reality only by thestark, stiff bodies of wolves, white in the gray morning.

"If we can eat, we'll make the cabin," said Rea. "But the dogs an' wolves are poison."

"Shall I kill a calf?" asked Jones.

"Ho! Ho! when hell freezes over--if we must!"

Jones found one 45-90 cartridge in all the outfit, and with that in the chamber of his rifle, once more struck south.Spruce trees began to show on the barrens and caribou trails roused hope in the hearts of the hunters.

"Look in the spruces," whispered Jones, dropping the rope of his sled. Among the black trees gray objectsmoved.

"Caribou!" said Rea. "Hurry! Shoot! Don't miss!"

But Jones waited. He knew the value of the last bullet. He had a hunter's patience. When the caribou came out inan open space, Jones whistled. It was then the rifle grew set and fixed; it was then the red fire belched forth.

At four hundred yards the bullet took some fraction of time to strike. What a long time that was! Then bothhunters heard the spiteful spat of the lead. The caribou fell, jumped up, ran down the slope, and fell again to rise nomore.

An hour of rest, with fire and meat, changed the world to the hunters; still glistening, it yet had lost its bitter coldits deathlike clutch.

"What's this?" cried Jones.

Moccasin tracks of different sizes, all toeing north, arrested the hunters.

"Pointed north! Wonder what thet means?" Rea plodded on, doubtfully shaking his head.

Night again, clear, cold, silver, starlit, silent night! The hunters rested, listening ever for the haunting mourn. Dayagain, white, passionless, monotonous, silent day. The hunters traveled on--on--on, ever listening for the hauntingmourn.

Another dusk found them within thirty miles of their cabin. Only one more day now.

Rea talked of his furs, of the splendid white furs he could not bring. Jones talked of his little muskoxen calves andjoyfully watched them dig for moss in the snow.

Vigilance relaxed that night. Outworn nature rebelled, and both hunters slept.

Rea awoke first, and kicking off the blankets, went out. His terrible roar of rage made Jones fly to his side.

Under the very shadow of the tepee, where the little musk-oxen had been tethered, they lay stretched outpathetically on crimson snow--stiff stone-cold, dead. Moccasin tracks told the story of the tragedy.

Jones leaned against his comrade.

The giant raised his huge fist.

"Jackoway out of wood! Jackoway out of wood!"

Then he choked.

The north wind, blowing through the thin, dark, weird spruce trees, moaned and seemed to sigh, "Naza! Naza!Naza!"

CHAPTER 11.

ON TO THE SIWASH

"Who all was doin' the talkin' last night?" asked Frank next morning, when we were having a late breakfast. "CauseI've a joke on somebody. Jim he talks in his sleep often, an' last night after you did finally get settled down, Jim he up inhis sleep an' says: 'Shore he's windy as hell! Shore he's windy as hell'!"

At this cruel exposure of his subjective wanderings, Jim showed extreme humiliation; but Frank's eyes fairlysnapped with the fun he got out of telling it. The genial foreman loved a joke. The week's stay at Oak, in which we allbecame thoroughly acquainted, had presented Jim as always the same quiet character, easy, slow, silent, lovable. In his

brother cowboy, however, we had discovered in addition to his fine, frank, friendly spirit, an overwhelming fondnessfor playing tricks. This boyish mischievousness, distinctly Arizonian, reached its acme whenever it tended in thedirection of our serious leader.

Lawson had been dispatched on some mysterious errand about which my curiosity was all in vain. The order ofthe day was leisurely to get in readiness, and pack for our journey to the Siwash on the morrow. I watered my horse,played with the hounds, knocked about the cliffs, returned to the cabin, and lay down on my bed. Jim's hands werewhite with flour. He was kneading dough, and had several low, flat pans on the table. Wallace and Jones strolled in, andlater Frank, and they all took various positions before the fire. I saw Frank, with the quickness of a sleight-of-handperformer, slip one of the pans of dough on the chair Jones had placed by the table. Jim did not see the action; Jones'sand Wallace's backs were turned to Frank, and he did not know I was in the cabin. The conversation continued on thesubject of Jones's big bay horse, which, hobbles and all, had gotten ten miles from camp the night before.

"Better count his ribs than his tracks," said Frank, and went on talking as easily and naturally as if he had notbeen expecting a very entertaining situation.

But no one could ever foretell Colonel Jones's actions. He showed every intention of seating himself in the chair,then walked over to his pack to begin searching for something or other. Wallace, however, promptly took the seat; andwhat began to be funnier than strange, he did not get up. Not unlikely this circumstance was owing to the fact thatseveral of the rude chairs had soft layers of old blanket tacked on them. Whatever were Frank's internal emotions, hepresented a remarkably placid and commonplace exterior; but when Jim began to search for the missing pan of dough,the joker slowly sagged in his chair.

"Shore that beats hell!" said Jim. "I had three pans of dough. Could the pup have taken one?"

Wallace rose to his feet, and the bread pan clattered to the floor, with a clang and a clank, evidently protestingagainst the indignity it had suffered. But the dough stayed with Wallace, a great white conspicuous splotch on hiscorduroys. Jim, Frank and Jones all saw it at once.

"Why--Mr. Wal--lace--you set--in the dough!" exclaimed Frank, in a queer, strangled voice. Then he exploded,while Jim fell over the table.

It seemed that those two Arizona rangers, matured men though they were, would die of convulsions. I laughedwith them, and so did Wallace, while he brought his one-handled bowie knife into novel use. Buffalo Jones nevercracked a smile, though he did remark about the waste of good flour.

Frank's face was a study for a psychologist when Jim actually apologized to Wallace for being so careless with hispans. I did not betray Frank, but I resolved to keep a still closer watch on him. It was partially because of this uneasysense of his trickiness in the fringe of my mind that I made a discovery. My sleeping-bag rested on a raised platform inone corner, and at a favorable moment I examined the bag. It had not been tampered with, but I noticed a string turningout through a chink between the logs. I found it came from a thick layer of straw under my bed, and had been tied tothe end of a flatly coiled lasso. Leaving the thing as it was, I went outside and carelessly chased the hounds round thecabin. The string stretched along the logs to another chink, where it returned into the cabin at a point near where Frankslept. No great power of deduction was necessary to acquaint me with full details of the plot to spoil my slumbers. So Ipatiently awaited developments.

Lawson rode in near sundown with the carcasses of two beasts of some species hanging over his saddle. It turnedout that Jones had planned a surprise for Wallace and me, and it could hardly have been a more enjoyable one,considering the time and place. We knew he had a flock of Persian sheep on the south slope of Buckskin, but had noidea it was within striking distance of Oak. Lawson had that day hunted up the shepherd and his sheep, to return to uswith two sixty-pound Persian lambs. We feasted at suppertime on meat which was sweet, juicy, very tender and of asrare a flavor as that of the Rocky Mountain sheep.

My state after supper was one of huge enjoyment and with intense interest I awaited Frank's first spar for anopening. It came presently, in a lull of the conversation.

"Saw a big rattler run under the cabin to-day," he said, as if he were speaking of one of Old Baldy's shoes. "I triedto get a whack at him, but he oozed away too quick."

"Shore I seen him often," put in Jim. Good, old, honest Jim, led away by his trickster comrade! It was very plain. SoI was to be frightened by snakes.

"These old canyon beds are ideal dens for rattle snakes," chimed in my scientific California friend. "I have foundseveral dens, but did not molest them as this is a particularly dangerous time of the year to meddle with the reptiles.Quite likely there's a den under the cabin."

While he made this remarkable statement, he had the grace to hide his face in a huge puff of smoke. He, too, was inthe plot. I waited for Jones to come out with some ridiculous theory or fact concerning the particular species of snake,but as he did not speak, I concluded they had wisely left him out of the secret. After mentally debating a moment, Idecided, as it was a very harmless joke, to help Frank into the fulfillment of his enjoyment.

"Rattlesnakes!" I exclaimed. "Heavens! I'd die if I heard one, let alone seeing it. A big rattler jumped at me one day,and I've never recovered from the shock."

Plainly, Frank was delighted to hear of my antipathy and my unfortunate experience, and he proceeded to expatiateon the viciousness of rattlesnakes, particularly those of Arizona. If I had believed the succeeding stories, emanatingfrom the fertile brains of those three fellows, I should have made certain that Arizona canyons were Brazilian jungles.Frank's parting shot, sent in a mellow, kind voice, was the best point in the whole trick. "Now, I'd be nervous if I had asleepin' bag like yours, because it's just the place for a rattler to ooze into."

In the confusion and dim light of bedtime I contrived to throw the end of my lasso over the horn of a saddlehanging on the wall, with the intention of augmenting the noise I soon expected to create; and I placed my automaticrifle and .38 S. and W. Special within easy reach of my hand. Then I crawled into my bag and composed myself to listen.Frank soon began to snore, so brazenly, so fictitiously, that I wondered at the man's absorbed intensity in his joke; andI was at great pains to smother in my breast a violent burst of riotous merriment. Jones's snores, however, were realenough, and this made me enjoy the situation all the more; because if he did not show a mild surprise when thecatastrophe fell, I would greatly miss my guess. I knew the three wily conspirators were wide-awake. Suddenly I felt amovement in the straw under me and a faint rustling. It was so soft, so sinuous, that if I had not known it was the lasso,I would assuredly have been frightened. I gave a little jump, such as one will make quickly in bed. Then the coil ran outfrom under the straw. How subtly suggestive of a snake! I made a slight outcry, a big jump, paused a moment foreffectiveness in which time Frank forgot to snore--then let out a tremendous yell, grabbed my guns, sent twelvethundering shots through the roof and pulled my lasso.

Crash! the saddle came down, to be followed by sounds not on Frank's programme and certainly not calculatedupon by me. But they were all the more effective. I gathered that Lawson, who was not in the secret, and who was anightmare sort of sleeper anyway, had knocked over Jim's table, with its array of pots and pans and then, unfortunatelyfor Jones had kicked that innocent person in the stomach.

As I lay there in my bag, the very happiest fellow in the wide world, the sound of my mirth was as the buzz of thewings of a fly to the mighty storm. Roar on roar filled the cabin.

When the three hypocrites recovered sufficiently from the startling climax to calm Lawson, who swore the cabinhad been attacked by Indians; when Jones stopped roaring long enough to hear it was only a harmless snake that hadcaused the trouble, we hushed to repose once more--not, however, without hearing some trenchant remarks from theboiling Colonel anent fun and fools, and the indubitable fact that there was not a rattlesnake on Buckskin Mountain.

Long after this explosion had died away, I heard, or rather felt, a mysterious shudder or tremor of the cabin, and Iknew that Frank and Jim were shaking with silent laughter. On my own score, I determined to find if Jones, in hisstrange make-up, had any sense of humor, or interest in life, or feeling, or love that did not center and hinge on four-footed beasts. In view of the rude awakening from what, no doubt, were pleasant dreams of wonderful white and greenanimals, combining the intelligence of man and strength of brutes--a new species creditable to his genius--I wasperhaps unjust in my conviction as to his lack of humor. And as to the other question, whether or not he had any realhuman feeling for the creatures built in his own image, that was decided very soon and unexpectedly.

The following morning, as soon as Lawson got in with the horses, we packed and started. Rather sorry was I tobid good-by to Oak Spring. Taking the back trail of the Stewarts, we walked the horses all day up a slowly narrowing,ascending canyon. The hounds crossed coyote and deer trails continually, but made no break. Sounder looked up as ifto say he associated painful reminiscences with certain kinds of tracks. At the head of the canyon we reached timber atabout the time dusk gathered, and we located for the night. Being once again nearly nine thousand feet high, we foundthe air bitterly cold, making a blazing fire most acceptable.

In the haste to get supper we all took a hand, and some one threw upon our tarpaulin tablecloth a tin cup of buttermixed with carbolic acid--a concoction Jones had used to bathe the sore feet of the dogs. Of course I got hold of this,

spread a generous portion on my hot biscuit, placed some red-hot beans on that, and began to eat like a hungry hunter.At first I thought I was only burned. Then I recognized the taste and burn of the acid and knew something was wrong.Picking up the tin, I examined it, smelled the pungent odor and felt a queer numb sense of fear. This lasted only for amoment, as I well knew the use and power of the acid, and had not swallowed enough to hurt me. I was about to makeknown my mistake in a matter-of-fact way, when it flashed over me the accident could be made to serve a turn.

"Jones!" I cried hoarsely. "What's in this butter?"

"Lord! you haven't eaten any of that. Why, I put carbolic acid in it."

"Oh--oh--oh--I'm poisoned! I ate nearly all of it! Oh--I'm burning up! I'm dying!" With that I began to moan androck to and fro and hold my stomach.

Consternation preceded shock. But in the excitement of the moment, Wallace--who, though badly scared, retainedhis wits made for me with a can of condensed milk. He threw me back with no gentle hand, and was squeezing the lifeout of me to make me open my mouth, when I gave him a jab in his side. I imagined his surprise, as this peculiarreception of his first-aid-to-the-injured made him hold off to take a look at me, and in this interval I contrived to whisperto him: "Joke! Joke! you idiot! I'm only shamming. I want to see if I can scare Jones and get even with Frank. Help meout! Cry! Get tragic!"

From that moment I shall always believe that the stage lost a great tragedian in Wallace. With a magnificentgesture he threw the can of condensed milk at Jones, who was so stunned he did not try to dodge. "Thoughtless man!Murderer! it's too late!" cried Wallace, laying me back across his knees. "It's too late. His teeth are locked. He's fargone. Poor boy! poor boy! Who's to tell his mother?"

I could see from under my hat-brim that the solemn, hollow voice had penetrated the cold exterior of theplainsman. He could not speak; he clasped and unclasped his big hands in helpless fashion. Frank was as white as asheet. This was simply delightful to me. But the expression of miserable, impotent distress on old Jim's sun-brownedface was more than I could stand, and I could no longer keep up the deception. Just as Wallace cried out to Jones topray--I wished then I had not weakened so soon--I got up and walked to the fire.

"Jim, I'll have another biscuit, please."

His under jaw dropped, then he nervously shoveled biscuits at me. Jones grabbed my hand and cried out with avoice that was new to me: "You can eat? You're better? You'll get over it?"

"Sure. Why, carbolic acid never phases me. I've often used it for rattlesnake bites. I did not tell you, but that rattlerat the cabin last night actually bit me, and I used carbolic to cure the poison."

Frank mumbled something about horses, and faded into the gloom. As for Jones, he looked at me ratherincredulously, and the absolute, almost childish gladness he manifested because I had been snatched from the grave,made me regret my deceit, and satisfied me forever on one score.

On awakening in the morning I found frost half an inch thick covered my sleeping-bag, whitened the ground, andmade the beautiful silver spruce trees silver in hue as well as in name.

We were getting ready for an early start, when two riders, with pack-horses jogging after them, came down the trailfrom the direction of Oak Spring. They proved to be Jeff Clarke, the wild-horse wrangler mentioned by the Stewarts,and his helper. They were on the way into the breaks for a string of pintos. Clarke was a short, heavily bearded man, ofjovial aspect. He said he had met the Stewarts going into Fredonia, and being advised of our destination, had hurried tocome up with us. As we did not know, except in a general way, where we were making for, the meeting was a fortunateevent.

Our camping site had been close to the divide made by one of the long, wooded ridges sent off by BuckskinMountain, and soon we were descending again. We rode half a mile down a timbered slope, and then out into abeautiful, flat forest of gigantic pines. Clarke informed us it was a level bench some ten miles long, running out from theslopes of Buckskin to face the Grand Canyon on the south, and the 'breaks of the Siwash on the west. For two hourswe rode between the stately lines of trees, and the hoofs of the horses gave forth no sound. A long, silvery grass,sprinkled with smiling bluebells, covered the ground, except close under the pines, where soft red mats invitedlounging and rest. We saw numerous deer, great gray mule deer, almost as large as elk. Jones said they had beencrossed with elk once, which accounted for their size. I did not see a stump, or a burned tree, or a windfall during the

ride.

Clarke led us to the rim of the canyon. Without any preparation--for the giant trees hid the open sky--we rode rightout to the edge of the tremendous chasm. At first I did not seem to think; my faculties were benumbed; only the puresensorial instinct of the savage who sees, but does not feel, made me take note of the abyss. Not one of our party hadever seen the canyon from this side, and not one of us said a word. But Clarke kept talking.

"Wild place this is hyar," he said. "Seldom any one but horse wranglers gits over this far. I've hed a bunch of wildpintos down in a canyon below fer two years. I reckon you can't find no better place fer camp than right hyar. Listen.Do you hear thet rumble? Thet's Thunder Falls. You can only see it from one place, an' thet far off, but thar's brooksyou can git at to water the hosses. Fer thet matter, you can ride up the slopes an' git snow. If you can git snow close,it'd be better, fer thet's an all-fired bad trail down fer water."

"Is this the cougar country the Stewarts talked about?" asked Jones.

"Reckon it is. Cougars is as thick in hyar as rabbits in a spring-hole canyon. I'm on the way now to bring up mypintos. The cougars hev cost me hundreds I might say thousands of dollars. I lose hosses all the time; an' damn me,gentlemen, I've never raised a colt. This is the greatest cougar country in the West. Look at those yellow crags! Thar'swhere the cougars stay. No one ever hunted 'em. It seems to me they can't be hunted. Deer and wild hosses by thethousand browse hyar on the mountain in summer, an' down in the breaks in winter. The cougars live fat. You'll finddeer and wild-hoss carcasses all over this country. You'll find lions' dens full of bones. You'll find warm deer left for thecoyotes. But whether you'll find the cougars, I can't say. I fetched dogs in hyar, an' tried to ketch Old Tom. I've put themon his trail an' never saw hide nor hair of them again. Jones, it's no easy huntin' hyar."

"Well, I can see that," replied our leader. "I never hunted lions in such a country, and never knew any one whohad. We'll have to learn how. We've the time and the dogs, all we need is the stuff in us."

"I hope you fellars git some cougars, an' I believe you will. Whatever you do, kill Old Tom."

"We'll catch him alive. We're not on a hunt to kill cougars," said Jones.

"What!" exclaimed Clarke, looking from Jones to us. His rugged face wore a half-smile.

"Jones ropes cougars, an' ties them up," replied Frank.

"I'm -- -- if he'll ever rope Old Tom," burst out Clarke, ejecting a huge quid of tobacco. "Why, man alive! it'd be thedeath of you to git near thet old villain. I never seen him, but I've seen his tracks fer five years. They're larger than anyhoss tracks you ever seen. He'll weigh over three hundred, thet old cougar. Hyar, take a look at my man's hoss. Look athis back. See them marks? Wal, Old Tom made them, an' he made them right in camp last fall, when we were down in thecanyon."

The mustang to which Clarke called our attention was a sleek cream and white pinto. Upon his side and back werelong regular scars, some an inch wide, and bare of hair.

"How on earth did he get rid of the cougar?" asked Jones.

"I don't know. Perhaps he got scared of the dogs. It took thet pinto a year to git well. Old Tom is a real lion. He'llkill a full-grown hoss when he wants, but a yearlin' colt is his especial likin'. You're sure to run acrost his trail, an' you'llnever miss it. Wal, if I find any cougar sign down in the canyon, I'll build two fires so as to let you know. Though nohunter, I'm tolerably acquainted with the varmints. The deer an' hosses are rangin' the forest slopes now, an' I think thecougars come up over the rim rock at night an' go back in the mornin'. Anyway, if your dogs can follow the trails,you've got sport, an' more'n sport comin' to you. But take it from me--don't try to rope Old Tom."

After all our disappointments in the beginning of the expedition, our hardship on the desert, our trials with thedogs and horses, it was real pleasure to make permanent camp with wood, water and feed at hand, a soul-stirring, ever-changing picture before us, and the certainty that we were in the wild lairs of the lions--among the Lords of the Crags!

While we were unpacking, every now and then I would straighten up and gaze out beyond. I knew the outlookwas magnificent and sublime beyond words, but as yet I had not begun to understand it. The great pine trees, growingto the very edge of the rim, received their full quota of appreciation from me, as did the smooth, flower-decked aislesleading back into the forest.

The location we selected for camp was a large glade, fifty paces or more from the precipice far enough, thecowboys averred, to keep our traps from being sucked down by some of the whirlpool winds, native to the spot. In thecenter of this glade stood a huge gnarled and blasted old pine, that certainly by virtue of hoary locks and bentshoulders had earned the right to stand aloof from his younger companions. Under this tree we placed all ourbelongings, and then, as Frank so felicitously expressed it, we were free to "ooze round an' see things."

I believe I had a sort of subconscious, selfish idea that some one would steal the canyon away from me if I did nothurry to make it mine forever; so I sneaked off, and sat under a pine growing on the very rim. At first glance, I sawbelow me, seemingly miles away, a wild chaos of red and buff mesas rising out of dark purple clefts. Beyond thesereared a long, irregular tableland, running south almost to the extent of my vision, which I remembered Clarke had calledPowell's Plateau. I remembered, also, that he had said it was twenty miles distant, was almost that many miles long, wasconnected to the mainland of Buckskin Mountain by a very narrow wooded dip of land called the Saddle, and that itpractically shut us out of a view of the Grand Canyon proper. If that was true, what, then, could be the name of thecanyon at my feet? Suddenly, as my gaze wandered from point to point, it was attested by a dark, conical mountain,white-tipped, which rose in the notch of the Saddle. What could it mean? Were there such things as canyon mirages?Then the dim purple of its color told of its great distance from me; and then its familiar shape told I had come into myown again--I had found my old friend once more. For in all that plateau there was only one snow-capped mountain--theSan Francisco Peak; and there, a hundred and fifty, perhaps two hundred miles away, far beyond the Grand Canyon, itsmiled brightly at me, as it had for days and days across the desert.

Hearing Jones yelling for somebody or everybody, I jumped up to find a procession heading for a point fartherdown the rim wall, where our leader stood waving his arms. The excitement proved to have been caused by cougarsigns at the head of the trail where Clarke had started down.

"They're here, boys, they're here," Jones kept repeating, as he showed us different tracks. "This sign is not so old.Boys, to-morrow we'll get up a lion, sure as you're born. And if we do, and Sounder sees him, then we've got a lion-dog! I'm afraid of Don. He has a fine nose; he can run and fight, but he's been trained to deer, and maybe I can't breakhim. Moze is still uncertain. If old Jude only hadn't been lamed! She would be the best of the lot. But Sounder is ourhope. I'm almost ready to swear by him."

All this was too much for me, so I slipped off again to be alone, and this time headed for the forest. Warm patchesof sunlight, like gold, brightened the ground; dark patches of sky, like ocean blue, gleamed between the treetops.Hardly a rustle of wind in the fine-toothed green branches disturbed the quiet. When I got fully out of sight of camp, Istarted to run as if I were a wild Indian. My running had no aim; just sheer mad joy of the grand old forest, the smell ofpine, the wild silence and beauty loosed the spirit in me so it had to run, and I ran with it till the physical being failed.

While resting on a fragrant bed of pine needles, endeavoring to regain control over a truant mind, trying tosubdue the encroaching of the natural man on the civilized man, I saw gray objects moving under the trees. I lost them,then saw them, and presently so plainly that, with delight on delight, I counted seventeen deer pass through an openarch of dark green. Rising to my feet, I ran to get round a low mound. They saw me and bounded away withprodigiously long leaps. Bringing their forefeet together, stiff-legged under them, they bounced high, like rubber balls,yet they were graceful.

The forest was so open that I could watch them for a long way; and as I circled with my gaze, a glimpse ofsomething white arrested my attention. A light, grayish animal appeared to be tearing at an old stump. Upon nearerview, I recognized a wolf, and he scented or sighted me at the same moment, and loped off into the shadows of thetrees. Approaching the spot where I had marked him I found he had been feeding from the carcass of a horse. Theremains had been only partly eaten, and were of an animal of the mustang build that had evidently been recently killed.Frightful lacerations under the throat showed where a lion had taken fatal hold. Deep furrows in the ground provedhow the mustang had sunk his hoofs, reared and shaken himself. I traced roughly defined tracks fifty paces to the leeof a little bank, from which I concluded the lion had sprung.

I gave free rein to my imagination and saw the forest dark, silent, peopled by none but its savage denizens, Thelion crept like a shadow, crouched noiselessly down, then leaped on his sleeping or browsing prey. The lonely nightstillness split to a frantic snort and scream of terror, and the stricken mustang with his mortal enemy upon his back,dashed off with fierce, wild love of life. As he went he felt his foe crawl toward his neck on claws of fire; he saw thetawny body and the gleaming eyes; then the cruel teeth snapped with the sudden bite, and the woodland tragedyended.

On the spot I conceived an antipathy toward lions. It was born of the frightful spectacle of what had once been a

glossy, prancing mustang, of the mute, sickening proof of the survival of the fittest, of the law that levels life.

Upon telling my camp-fellows about my discovery, Jones and Wallace walked out to see it, while Jim told me thewolf I had seen was a "lofer," one of the giant buffalo wolves of Buckskin; and if I would watch the carcass in themornings and evenings, I would "shore as hell get a plunk at him."

White pine burned in a beautiful, clear blue flame, with no smoke; and in the center of the campfire left a goldenheart. But Jones would not have any sitting up, and hustled us off to bed, saying we would be "blamed" glad of it inabout fifteen hours. I crawled into my sleeping-bag, made a hood of my Navajo blanket, and peeping from under it,watched the fire and the flickering shadows. The blaze burned down rapidly. Then the stars blinked. Arizona starswould be moons in any other State! How serene, peaceful, august, infinite and wonderfully bright! No breeze stirred thepines. The clear tinkle of the cowbells on the hobbled horses rang from near and distant parts of the forest. The prosaicbell of the meadow and the pasture brook, here, in this environment, jingled out different notes, as clear, sweet, musicalas silver bells.

CHAPTER 12.

OLD TOM

At daybreak our leader routed us out. The frost mantled the ground so heavily that it looked like snow, and therare atmosphere bit like the breath of winter. The forest stood solemn and gray; the canyon lay wrapped in vaporyslumber.

Hot biscuits and coffee, with a chop or two of the delicious Persian lamb meat, put a less Spartan tinge on themorning, and gave Wallace and me more strength--we needed not incentive to leave the fire, hustle our saddles on thehorses and get in line with our impatient leader. The hounds scampered over the frost, shoving their noses at the tuftsof grass and bluebells. Lawson and Jim remained in camp; the rest of us trooped southwest.

A mile or so in that direction, the forest of pine ended abruptly, and a wide belt of low, scrubby old trees, breasthigh to a horse, fringed the rim of the canyon and appeared to broaden out and grow wavy southward. The edge of theforest was as dark and regular as if a band of woodchoppers had trimmed it. We threaded our way through this thicket,all peering into the bisecting deer trails for cougar tracks in the dust.

"Bring the dogs! Hurry!" suddenly called Jones from a thicket.

We lost no time complying, and found him standing in a trail, with his eyes on the sand. "Take a look, boys. Agood-sized male cougar passed here last night. Hyar, Sounder, Don, Moze, come on!"

It was a nervous, excited pack of hounds. Old Jude got to Jones first, and she sang out; then Sounder openedwith his ringing bay, and before Jones could mount, a string of yelping dogs sailed straight for the forest.

"Ooze along, boys!" yelled Frank, wheeling Spot.

With the cowboy leading, we strung into the pines, and I found myself behind. Presently even Wallacedisappeared. I almost threw the reins at Satan, and yelled for him to go. The result enlightened me. Like an arrow from abow, the black shot forward. Frank had told me of his speed, that when he found his stride it was like riding a flyingfeather to be on him. Jones, fearing he would kill me, had cautioned me always to hold him in, which I had done. Satanstretched out with long graceful motions; he did not turn aside for logs, but cleared them with easy and powerfulspring, and he swerved only slightly to the trees. This latter, I saw at once, made the danger for me. It became a matterof saving my legs and dodging branches. The imperative need of this came to me with convincing force. I dodged abranch on one tree, only to be caught square in the middle by a snag on another. Crack! If the snag had not broken,Satan would have gone on riderless, and I would have been left hanging, a pathetic and drooping monition to the risksof the hunt. I kept ducking my head, now and then falling flat over the pommel to avoid a limb that would have brushedme off, and hugging the flanks of my horse with my knees. Soon I was at Wallace's heels, and had Jones in sight. Nowand then glimpses of Frank's white horse gleamed through the trees.

We began to circle toward the south, to go up and down shallow hollows, to find the pines thinning out; then we

shot out of the forest into the scrubby oak. Riding through this brush was the cruelest kind of work, but Satan kept onclose to the sorrel. The hollows began to get deeper, and the ridges between them narrower. No longer could we keep astraight course.

On the crest of one of the ridges we found Jones awaiting us. Jude, Tige and Don lay panting at his feet. Plainlythe Colonel appeared vexed.

"Listen," he said, when we reined in.

We complied, but did not hear a sound.

"Frank's beyond there some place," continued Jones, "but I can't see him, nor hear the hounds anymore. Don andTige split again on deer trails. Old Jude hung on the lion track, but I stopped her here. There's something I can't figure.Moze held a beeline southwest, and he yelled seldom. Sounder gradually stopped baying. Maybe Frank can tell ussomething."

Jones's long drawn-out signal was answered from the direction he expected, and after a little time, Frank's whitehorse shone out of the gray-green of a ledge a mile away.

This drew my attention to our position. We were on a high ridge out in the open, and I could see fifty miles of theshaggy slopes of Buckskin. Southward the gray, ragged line seemed to stop suddenly, and beyond it purple haze hungover a void I knew to be the canyon. And facing west, I came, at last, to understand perfectly the meaning of the breaksin the Siwash. They were nothing more than ravines that headed up on the slopes and ran down, getting steeper andsteeper, though scarcely wider, to break into the canyon. Knife-crested ridges rolled westward, wave on wave, like thebillows of a sea. I appreciated that these breaks were, at their sources, little washes easy to jump across, and at theirmouths a mile deep and impassable. Huge pine trees shaded these gullies, to give way to the gray growth of stuntedoak, which in turn merged into the dark green of pinyon. A wonderful country for deer and lions, it seemed to me, butimpassable, all but impossible for a hunter.

Frank soon appeared, brushing through the bending oaks, and Sounder trotted along behind him.

"Where's Moze?" inquired Jones.

"The last I heard of Moze he was out of the brush, goin' across the pinyon flat, right for the canyon. He had a hottrail."

"Well, we're certain of one thing; if it was a deer, he won't come back soon, and if it was a lion, he'll tree it, lose thescent, and come back. We've got to show the hounds a lion in a tree. They'd run a hot trail, bump into a tree, and thenbe at fault. What was wrong with Sounder?"

"I don't know. He came back to me."

"We can't trust him, or any of them yet. Still, maybe they're doing better than we know."

The outcome of the chase, so favorably started was a disappointment, which we all felt keenly. After somediscussion, we turned south, intending to ride down to the rim wall and follow it back to camp. I happened to turn once,perhaps to look again at the far-distant pink cliffs of Utah, or the wave-like dome of Trumbull Mountain, when I sawMoze trailing close behind me. My yell halted the Colonel.

"Well, I'll be darned!" ejaculated he, as Moze hove in sight. "Come hyar, you rascal!"

He was a tired dog, but had no sheepish air about him, such as he had worn when lagging in from deer chases. Hewagged his tail, and flopped down to pant and pant, as if to say: "What's wrong with you guys?"

"Boys, for two cents I'd go back and put Jude on that trail. It's just possible that Moze treed a lion. But--well, Iexpect there's more likelihood of his chasing the lion over the rim; so we may as well keep on. The strange thing is thatSounder wasn't with Moze. There may have been two lions. You see we are up a tree ourselves. I have known lions torun in pairs, and also a mother keep four two-year-olds with her. But such cases are rare. Here, in this country, though,maybe they run round and have parties."

As we left the breaks behind we got out upon a level pinyon flat. A few cedars grew with the pinyons. Deerrunways and trails were thick.

"Boys, look at that," said Jones. "This is great lion country, the best I ever saw."

He pointed to the sunken, red, shapeless remain of two horses, and near them a ghastly scattering of bleachedbones. "A lion-lair right here on the flat. Those two horses were killed early this spring, and I see no signs of theircarcasses having been covered with brush and dirt. I've got to learn lion lore over again, that's certain."

As we paused at the head of a depression, which appeared to be a gap in the rim wall, filled with massed pinyonsand splintered piles of yellow stone, caught Sounder going through some interesting moves. He stopped to smell abush. Then he lifted his head, and electrified me with a great, deep sounding bay.

"Hi! there, listen to that!" yelled Jones "What's Sounder got? Give him room--don't run him down. Easy now, olddog, easy, easy!"

Sounder suddenly broke down a trail. Moze howled, Don barked, and Tige let out his staccato yelp. They ranthrough the brush here, there, every where. Then all at once old Jude chimed in with her mellow voice, and Jonestumbled off his horse.

"By the Lord Harry! There's something here."

"Here, Colonel, here's the bush Sounder smelt and there's a sandy trail under it," I called.

"There go Don an' Tige down into the break!" cried Frank. "They've got a hot scent!"

Jones stooped over the place I designated, to jerk up with reddening face, and as he flung himself into the saddleroared out: "After Sounder! Old Tom! Old Tom! Old Tom!"

We all heard Sounder, and at the moment of Jones's discovery, Moze got the scent and plunged ahead of us.

"Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!" yelled the Colonel. Frank sent Spot forward like a white streak. Sounder called to us in irresistiblebays, which Moze answered, and then crippled Jude bayed in baffled impotent distress.

The atmosphere was charged with that lion. As if by magic, the excitation communicated itself to all, and men,horses and dogs acted in accord. The ride through the forest had been a jaunt. This was a steeplechase, a mad,heedless, perilous, glorious race. And we had for a pacemaker a cowboy mounted on a tireless mustang.

Always it seemed to me, while the wind rushed, the brush whipped, I saw Frank far ahead, sitting his saddle as ifglued there, holding his reins loosely forward. To see him ride so was a beautiful sight. Jones let out his Comanche yellat every dozen jumps and Wallace sent back a thrilling "Waa-hoo-o!" In the excitement I had again checked my horse,and when Jones remembered, and loosed the bridle, how the noble animal responded! The pace he settled into dazedme; I could hardly distinguish the deer trail down which he was thundering. I lost my comrades ahead; the pinyonsblurred in my sight; I only faintly heard the hounds. It occurred to me we were making for the breaks, but I did not thinkof checking Satan. I thought only of flying on faster and faster.

"On! On! old fellow! Stretch out! Never lose this race! We've got to be there at the finish!" I called to Satan, andhe seemed to understand and stretched lower, farther, quicker.

The brush pounded my legs and clutched and tore my clothes; the wind whistled; the pinyon branches cut andwhipped my face. Once I dodged to the left, as Satan swerved to the right, with the result that I flew out of the saddle,and crashed into a pinyon tree, which marvelously brushed me back into the saddle. The wild yells and deep bayssounded nearer. Satan tripped and plunged down, throwing me as gracefully as an aerial tumbler wings his flight. Ialighted in a bush, without feeling of scratch or pain. As Satan recovered and ran past, I did not seek to make him stop,but getting a good grip on the pommel, I vaulted up again. Once more he raced like a wild mustang. And from nearerand nearer in front pealed the alluring sounds of the chase.

Satan was creeping close to Wallace and Jones, with Frank looming white through the occasional pinyons. Thenall dropped out of sight, to appear again suddenly. They had reached the first break. Soon I was upon it. Two deer ranout of the ravine, almost brushing my horse in the haste. Satan went down and up in a few giant strides. Only thenarrow ridge separated us from another break. It was up and down then for Satan, a work to which he manfully sethimself. Occasionally I saw Wallace and Jones, but heard them oftener. All the time the breaks grew deeper, till finallySatan had to zigzag his way down and up. Discouragement fastened on me, when from the summit of the next ridge Isaw Frank far down the break, with Jones and Wallace not a quarter of a mile away from him. I sent out a long, exultantyell as Satan crashed into the hard, dry wash in the bottom of the break.

I knew from the way he quickened under me that he intended to overhaul somebody. Perhaps because of the cleargoing, or because my frenzy had cooled to a thrilling excitement which permitted detail, I saw clearly and distinctly thespeeding horsemen down the ravine. I picked out the smooth pieces of ground ahead, and with the slightest touch ofthe rein on his neck, guided Satan into them. How he ran! The light, quick beats of his hoofs were regular, pounding.Seeing Jones and Wallace sail high into the air, I knew they had jumped a ditch. Thus prepared, I managed to stick onwhen it yawned before me; and Satan, never slackening, leaped up and up, giving me a new swing.

Dust began to settle in little clouds before me; Frank, far ahead, had turned his mustang up the side of the break;Wallace, within hailing distance, now turned to wave me a hand. The rushing wind fairly sang in my ears; the walls ofthe break were confused blurs of yellow and green; at every stride Satan seemed to swallow a rod of the white trail.

Jones began to scale the ravine, heading up obliquely far on the side of where Frank had vanished, and as Wallacefollowed suit, I turned Satan. I caught Wallace at the summit, and we raced together out upon another flat of pinyon.We heard Frank and Jones yelling in a way that caused us to spur our horses frantically. Spot, gleaming white near aclump of green pinyons, was our guiding star. That last quarter of a mile was a ringing run, a ride to remember.

As our mounts crashed back with stiff forelegs and haunches, Wallace and I leaped off and darted into the clumpof pinyons, whence issued a hair-raising medley of yells and barks. I saw Jones, then Frank, both waving their arms,then Moze and Sounder running wildly, airlessly about.

"Look there!" rang in my ear, and Jones smashed me on the back with a blow, which at any ordinary time wouldhave laid me flat.

In a low, stubby pinyon tree, scarce twenty feet from us, was a tawny form. An enormous mountain lion, as largeas an African lioness, stood planted with huge, round legs on two branches; and he faced us gloomily, neitherfrightened nor fierce. He watched the running dogs with pale, yellow eyes, waved his massive head and switched along, black tufted tail.

"It's Old Tom! sure as you're born! It's Old Tom!" yelled Jones. "There's no two lions like that in one country. Holdstill now. Jude is here, and she'll see him, she'll show him to the other hounds. Hold still!"

We heard Jude coming at a fast pace for a lame dog, and we saw her presently, running with her nose down for amoment, then up. She entered the clump of trees, and bumped her nose against the pinyon Old Tom was in, and lookedup like a dog that knew her business. The series of wild howls she broke into quickly brought Sounder and Moze to herside. They, too, saw the big lion, not fifteen feet over their heads.

We were all yelling and trying to talk at once, in some such state as the dogs.

"Hyar, Moze! Come down out of that!" hoarsely shouted Jones.

Moze had begun to climb the thick, many-branched, low pinyon tree. He paid not the slightest attention to Jones,who screamed and raged at him.

"Cover the lion!" cried he to me. "Don't shoot unless he crouches to jump on me."

The little beaded front-sight wavered slightly as I held my rifle leveled at the grim, snarling face, and out of thecorner of my eye, as it were, I saw Jones dash in under the lion and grasp Moze by the hind leg and haul him down. Hebroke from Jones and leaped again to the first low branch. His master then grasped his collar and carried him to wherewe stood and held him choking.

"Boys, we can't keep Tom up there. When he jumps, keep out of his way. Maybe we can chase him up a bettertree."

Old Tom suddenly left the branches, swinging violently; and hitting the ground like a huge cat on springs, hebounded off, tail up, in a most ludicrous manner. His running, however, did not lack speed, for he quickly outdistancedthe bursting hounds.

A stampede for horses succeeded this move. I had difficulty in closing my camera, which I had forgotten until thelast moment, and got behind the others. Satan sent the dust flying and the pinyon branches crashing. Hardly had I timeto bewail my ill-luck in being left, when I dashed out of a thick growth of trees to come upon my companions, alldismounted on the rim of the Grand Canyon.

"He's gone down! He's gone down!" raged Jones, stamping the ground. "What luck! What miserable luck! Butdon't quit; spread along the rim, boys, and look for him. Cougars can't fly. There's a break in the rim somewhere."

The rock wall, on which we dizzily stood, dropped straight down for a thousand feet, to meet a long, pinyon-covered slope, which graded a mile to cut off into what must have been the second wall. We were far west of Clarke'strail now, and faced a point above where Kanab Canyon, a red gorge a mile deep, met the great canyon. As I ran alongthe rim, looking for a fissure or break, my gaze seemed impellingly drawn by the immensity of this thing I could notname, and for which I had as yet no intelligible emotion.

Two "Waa-hoos" in the rear turned me back in double-quick time, and hastening by the horses, I found the threemen grouped at the head of a narrow break.

"He went down here. Wallace saw him round the base of that tottering crag."

The break was wedge-shaped, with the sharp end off toward the rim, and it descended so rapidly as to appearalmost perpendicular. It was a long, steep slide of small, weathered shale, and a place that no man in his right senseswould ever have considered going down. But Jones, designating Frank and me, said in his cool, quick voice:

"You fellows go down. Take Jude and Sounder in leash. If you find his trail below along the wall, yell for us.Meanwhile, Wallace and I will hang over the rim and watch for him."

Going down, in one sense, was much easier than had appeared, for the reason that once started we moved onsliding beds of weathered stone. Each of us now had an avalanche for a steed. Frank forged ahead with a roar, and thenseeing danger below, tried to get out of the mass. But the stones were like quicksand; every step he took sunk him indeeper. He grasped the smooth cliff, to find holding impossible. The slide poured over a fall like so much water. Hereached and caught a branch of a pinyon, and lifting his feet up, hung on till the treacherous area of moving stones hadpassed.

While I had been absorbed in his predicament, my avalanche augmented itself by slide on slide, perhaps loosenedby his; and before I knew it, I was sailing down with ever-increasing momentum. The sensation was distinctly pleasant,and a certain spirit, before restrained in me, at last ran riot. The slide narrowed at the drop where Frank had jumped, andthe stones poured over in a stream. I jumped also, but having a rifle in one hand, failed to hold, and plunged down intothe slide again. My feet were held this time, as in a vise. I kept myself upright and waited. Fortunately, the jumble ofloose stone slowed and stopped, enabling me to crawl over to one side where there was comparatively good footing.Below us, for fifty yards was a sheet of rough stone, as bare as washed granite well could be. We slid down this inregular schoolboy fashion, and had reached another restricted neck in the fissure, when a sliding crash above warnedus that the avalanches had decided to move of their own free will. Only a fraction of a moment had we to find footingalong the yellow cliff, when, with a cracking roar, the mass struck the slippery granite. If we had been on that slope, ourlives would not have been worth a grain of the dust flying in clouds above us. Huge stones, that had formed thebottom of the slides, shot ahead, and rolling, leaping, whizzed by us with frightful velocity, and the remainder groanedand growled its way down, to thunder over the second fall and die out in a distant rumble.

The hounds had hung back, and were not easily coaxed down to us. From there on, down to the base of thegigantic cliff, we descended with little difficulty.

"We might meet the old gray cat anywheres along here," said Frank.

The wall of yellow limestone had shelves, ledges, fissures and cracks, any one of which might have concealed alion. On these places I turned dark, uneasy glances. It seemed to me events succeeded one another so rapidly that Ihad no time to think, to examine, to prepare. We were rushed from one sensation to another.

"Gee! look here," said Frank; "here's his tracks. Did you ever see the like of that?"

Certainly I had never fixed my eyes on such enormous cat-tracks as appeared in the yellow dust at the base of therim wall. The mere sight of them was sufficient to make a man tremble.

"Hold in the dogs, Frank," I called. "Listen. I think I heard a yell."

From far above came a yell, which, though thinned out by distance, was easily recognized as Jones's. We returnedto the opening of the break, and throwing our heads back, looked up the slide to see him coming down.

"Wait for me! Wait for me! I saw the lion go in a cave. Wait for me!"

With the same roar and crack and slide of rocks as had attended our descent, Jones bore down on us. For an oldman it was a marvelous performance. He walked on the avalanches as though he wore seven-league boots, andpresently, as we began to dodge whizzing bowlders, he stepped down to us, whirling his coiled lasso. His jaw bulgedout; a flash made fire in his cold eyes.

"Boys, we've got Old Tom in a corner. I worked along the rim north and looked over every place I could. Now,maybe you won't believe it, but I heard him pant. Yes, sir, he panted like the tired lion he is. Well, presently I saw himlying along the base of the rim wall. His tongue was hanging out. You see, he's a heavy lion, and not used to runninglong distances. Come on, now. It's not far. Hold in the dogs. You there with the rifle, lead off, and keep your eyespeeled."

Single file, we passed along in the shadow of the great cliff. A wide trail had been worn in the dust.

"A lion run-way," said Jones. "Don't you smell the cat?"

Indeed, the strong odor of cat was very pronounced; and that, without the big fresh tracks, made the skin on myface tighten and chill. As we turned a jutting point in the wall, a number of animals, which I did not recognize, plungedhelter-skelter down the canyon slope.

"Rocky Mountain sheep!" exclaimed Jones. "Look! Well, this is a discovery. I never heard of a bighorn in theCanyon."

It was indicative of the strong grip Old Tom had on us that we at once forgot the remarkable fact of coming uponthose rare sheep in such a place.

Jones halted us presently before a deep curve described by the rim wall, the extreme end of which terminatedacross the slope in an impassable projecting corner.

"See across there, boys. See that black hole. Old Tom's in there."

"What's your plan?" queried the cowboy sharply.

"Wait. We'll slip up to get better lay of the land."

We worked our way noiselessly along the rim-wall curve for several hundred yards and came to a halt again, thistime with a splendid command of the situation. The trail ended abruptly at the dark cave, so menacingly staring at us,and the corner of the cliff had curled back upon itself. It was a box-trap, with a drop at the end, too great for any beast,a narrow slide of weathered stone running down, and the rim wall trail. Old Tom would plainly be compelled to chooseone of these directions if he left his cave.

"Frank, you and I will keep to the wall and stop near that scrub pinyon, this side of the hole. If I rope him, I canuse that tree."

Then he turned to me:

"Are you to be depended on here?"

"I? What do you want me to do?" I demanded, and my whole breast seemed to sink in.

"You cut across the head of this slope and take up your position in the slide below the cave, say just by that bigstone. From there you can command the cave, our position and your own. Now, if it is necessary to kill this lion to saveme or Frank, or, of course, yourself, can you be depended upon to kill him?"

I felt a queer sensation around my heart and a strange tightening of the skin upon my face! What a position for meto be placed in! For one instant I shook like a quivering aspen leaf. Then because of the pride of a man, or perhapsinherited instincts cropping out at this perilous moment, I looked up and answered quietly:

"Yes. I will kill him!"

"Old Tom is cornered, and he'll come out. He can run only two ways: along this trail, or down that slide. I'll take mystand by the scrub pinyon there so I can get a hitch if I rope him. Frank, when I give the word, let the dogs go. Grey,you block the slide. If he makes at us, even if I do get my rope on him, kill him! Most likely he'll jump down hill--then

you'll HAVE to kill him! Be quick. Now loose the hounds. Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!"

I jumped into the narrow slide of weathered stone and looked up. Jones's stentorian yell rose high above theclamor of the hounds. He whirled his lasso.

A huge yellow form shot over the trail and hit the top of the slide with a crash. The lasso streaked out with arrowyswiftness, circled, and snapped viciously close to Old Tom's head. "Kill him! Kill him!" roared Jones. Then the lionleaped, seemingly into the air above me. Instinctively I raised my little automatic rifle. I seemed to hear a millionbellowing reports. The tawny body, with its grim, snarling face, blurred in my sight. I heard a roar of sliding stones atmy feet. I felt a rush of wind. I caught a confused glimpse of a whirling wheel of fur, rolling down the slide.

Then Jones and Frank were pounding me, and yelling I know not what. From far above came floating down a long"Waa-hoo!" I saw Wallace silhouetted against the blue sky. I felt the hot barrel of my rifle, and shuddered at the bloodystones below me--then, and then only, did I realize, with weakening legs, that Old Tom had jumped at me, and hadjumped to his death.

CHAPTER 13.

SINGING CLIFFS

Old Tom had rolled two hundred yards down the canyon, leaving a red trail and bits of fur behind him. When I hadclambered down to the steep slide where he had lodged, Sounder and Jude had just decided he was no longer worthbiting, and were wagging their tails. Frank was shaking his head, and Jones, standing above the lion, lasso in hand,wore a disconsolate face.

"How I wish I had got the rope on him!"

"I reckon we'd be gatherin' up the pieces of you if you had," said Frank, dryly.

We skinned the old king on the rocky slope of his mighty throne, and then, beginning to feel the effects of severeexertion, we cut across the slope for the foot of the break. Once there, we gazed up in disarray. That break resembled awalk of life--how easy to slip down, how hard to climb! Even Frank, inured as he was to strenuous toil, began to swearand wipe his sweaty brow before we had made one-tenth of the ascent. It was particularly exasperating, not to mentionthe danger of it, to work a few feet up a slide, and then feel it start to move. We had to climb in single file, whichjeopardized the safety of those behind the leader. Sometimes we were all sliding at once, like boys on a pond, with thedifference that we were in danger. Frank forged ahead, turning to yell now and then for us to dodge a cracking stone.Faithful old Jude could not get up in some places, so laying aside my rifle, I carried her, and returned for the weapon. Itbecame necessary, presently, to hide behind cliff projections to escape the avalanches started by Frank, and to wait tillhe had surmounted the break. Jones gave out completely several times, saying the exertion affected his heart. Whatwith my rifle, my camera and Jude, I could offer him no assistance, and was really in need of that myself. When itseemed as if one more step would kill us, we reached the rim, and fell panting with labored chests and dripping skins.We could not speak. Jones had worn a pair of ordinary shoes without thick soles and nails, and it seemed well to speakof them in the past tense. They were split into ribbons and hung on by the laces. His feet were cut and bruised.

On the way back to camp, we encountered Moze and Don coming out of the break where we had started Sounderon the trail. The paws of both hounds were yellow with dust, which proved they had been down under the rim wall.Jones doubted not in the least that they had chased a lion.

Upon examination, this break proved to be one of the two which Clarke used for trails to his wild horse corral inthe canyon. According to him, the distance separating them was five miles by the rim wall, and less than half that in astraight line. Therefore, we made for the point of the forest where it ended abruptly in the scrub oak. We got into camp,a fatigued lot of men, horses and dogs. Jones appeared particularly happy, and his first move, after dismounting, was tostretch out the lion skin and measure it.

"Ten feet, three inches and a half!" he sang out.

"Shore it do beat hell!" exclaimed Jim in tones nearer to excitement than any I had ever heard him use.

"Old Tom beats, by two inches, any cougar I ever saw," continued Jones. "He must have weighed more than threehundred. We'll set about curing the hide. Jim, stretch it well on a tree, and we'll take a hand in peeling off the fat."

All of the party worked on the cougar skin that afternoon. The gristle at the base of the neck, where it met theshoulders, was so tough and thick we could not scrape it thin. Jones said this particular spot was so well protectedbecause in fighting, cougars were most likely to bite and claw there. For that matter, the whole skin was tough, tougherthan leather; and when it dried, it pulled all the horseshoe nails out of the pine tree upon which we had it stretched.

About time for the sun to set, I strolled along the rim wall to look into the canyon. I was beginning to feelsomething of its character and had growing impressions. Dark purple smoke veiled the clefts deep down between themesas. I walked along to where points of cliff ran out like capes and peninsulas, all seamed, cracked, wrinkled, scarredand yellow with age, with shattered, toppling ruins of rocks ready at a touch to go thundering down. I could not resistthe temptation to crawl out to the farthest point, even though I shuddered over the yard-wide ridges; and when onceseated on a bare promontory, two hundred feet from the regular rim wall, I felt isolated, marooned.

The sun, a liquid red globe, had just touched its under side to the pink cliffs of Utah, and fired a crimson flood oflight over the wonderful mountains, plateaus, escarpments, mesas, domes and turrets or the gorge. The rim wall ofPowell's Plateau was a thin streak of fire; the timber above like grass of gold; and the long slopes below shaded frombright to dark. Point Sublime, bold and bare, ran out toward the plateau, jealously reaching for the sun. Bass's Tombpeeped over the Saddle. The Temple of Vishnu lay bathed in vapory shading clouds, and the Shinumo Altar shone withrays of glory.

The beginning of the wondrous transformation, the dropping of the day's curtain, was for me a rare and perfectmoment. As the golden splendor of sunset sought out a peak or mesa or escarpment, I gave it a name to suit my fancy;and as flushing, fading, its glory changed, sometimes I rechristened it. Jupiter's Chariot, brazen wheeled, stood ready toroll into the clouds. Semiramis's Bed, all gold, shone from a tower of Babylon. Castor and Pollux clasped hands over aStygian river. The Spur of Doom, a mountain shaft as red as hell, and inaccessible, insurmountable, lured with strangelight. Dusk, a bold, black dome, was shrouded by the shadow of a giant mesa. The Star of Bethlehem glittered from thebrow of Point Sublime. The Wraith, fleecy, feathered curtain of mist, floated down among the ruins of castles andpalaces, like the ghost of a goddess. Vales of Twilight, dim, dark ravines, mystic homes of specters, led into the awfulValley of the Shadow, clothed in purple night.

Suddenly, as the first puff of the night wind fanned my cheek, a strange, sweet, low moaning and sighing came tomy ears. I almost thought I was in a dream. But the canyon, now blood-red, was there in overwhelming reality, aprofound, solemn, gloomy thing, but real. The wind blew stronger, and then I was to a sad, sweet song, which lulled asthe wind lulled. I realized at once that the sound was caused by the wind blowing into the peculiar formations of thecliffs. It changed, softened, shaded, mellowed, but it was always sad. It rose from low, tremulous, sweetly quaveringsighs, to a sound like the last woeful, despairing wail of a woman. It was the song of the sea sirens and the music of thewaves; it had the soft sough of the night wind in the trees, and the haunting moan of lost spirits.

With reluctance I turned my back to the gorgeously changing spectacle of the canyon and crawled in to the rimwall. At the narrow neck of stone I peered over to look down into misty blue nothingness.

That night Jones told stories of frightened hunters, and assuaged my mortification by saying "buck-fever" waspardonable after the danger had passed, and especially so in my case, because of the great size and fame of Old Tom.

"The worst case of buck-fever I ever saw was on a buffalo hunt I had with a fellow named Williams," went onJones. "I was one of the scouts leading a wagon-train west on the old Santa Fe trail. This fellow said he was a bighunter, and wanted to kill buffalo, so I took him out. I saw a herd making over the prairie for a hollow where a brook ran,and by hard work, got in ahead of them. I picked out a position just below the edge of the bank, and we lay quiet,waiting. From the direction of the buffalo, I calculated we'd be just about right to get a shot at no very long range. As itwas, I suddenly heard thumps on the ground, and cautiously raising my head, saw a huge buffalo bull just over us, notfifteen feet up the bank. I whispered to Williams: 'For God's sake, don't shoot, don't move!' The bull's little fiery eyessnapped, and he reared. I thought we were goners, for when a bull comes down on anything with his forefeet, it's donefor. But he slowly settled back, perhaps doubtful. Then, as another buffalo came to the edge of the bank, luckily a littleway from us, the bull turned broadside, presenting a splendid target. Then I whispered to Williams: 'Now's your chance.Shoot!' I waited for the shot, but none came. Looking at Williams, I saw he was white and trembling. Big drops of sweatstood out on his brow his teeth chattered, and his hands shook. He had forgotten he carried a rifle."

"That reminds me," said Frank. "They tell a story over at Kanab on a Dutchman named Schmitt. He was very fond

of huntin', an' I guess had pretty good success after deer an' small game. One winter he was out in the Pink Cliffs with aMormon named Shoonover, an' they run into a lammin' big grizzly track, fresh an' wet. They trailed him to a clump ofchaparral, an' on goin' clear round it, found no tracks leadin' out. Shoonover said Schmitt commenced to sweat. Theywent back to the place where the trail led in, an' there they were, great big silver tip tracks, bigger'n hoss-tracks, sofresh thet water was oozin' out of 'em. Schmitt said: 'Zake, you go in und ged him. I hef took sick right now.'"

Happy as we were over the chase of Old Tom, and our prospects for Sounder, Jude and Moze had seen a lion in atree--we sought our blankets early. I lay watching the bright stars, and listening to the roar of the wind in the pines. Atintervals it lulled to a whisper, and then swelled to a roar, and then died away. Far off in the forest a coyote barked once.Time and time again, as I was gradually sinking into slumber, the sudden roar of the wind startled me. I imagined it wasthe crash of rolling, weathered stone, and I saw again that huge outspread flying lion above me.

I awoke sometime later to find Moze had sought the warmth of my side, and he lay so near my arm that I reachedout and covered him with an end of the blanket I used to break the wind. It was very cold and the time must have beenvery late, for the wind had died down, and I heard not a tinkle from the hobbled horses. The absence of the cowbellmusic gave me a sense of loneliness, for without it the silence of the great forest was a thing to be felt.

This oppressiveness, however, was broken by a far-distant cry, unlike any sound I had ever heard. Not sure ofmyself, I freed my ears from the blanketed hood and listened. It came again, a wild cry, that made me think first of a lostchild, and then of the mourning wolf of the north. It must have been a long distance off in the forest. An interval ofsome moments passed, then it pealed out again, nearer this time, and so human that it startled me. Moze raised his headand growled low in his throat and sniffed the keen air.

"Jones, Jones," I called, reaching over to touch the old hunter.

He awoke at once, with the clear-headedness of the light sleeper.

"I heard the cry of some beast," I said, "And it was so weird, so strange. I want to know what it was."

Such a long silence ensued that I began to despair of hearing the cry again, when, with a suddenness whichstraightened the hair on my head, a wailing shriek, exactly like a despairing woman might give in death agony, split thenight silence. It seemed right on us.

"Cougar! Cougar! Cougar!" exclaimed Jones.

"What's up?" queried Frank, awakened by the dogs.

Their howling roused the rest of the party, and no doubt scared the cougar, for his womanish screech was notrepeated. Then Jones got up and gatherered his blankets in a roll.

"Where you oozin' for now?" asked Frank, sleepily.

"I think that cougar just came up over the rim on a scouting hunt, and I'm going to go down to the head of the trailand stay there till morning. If he returns that way, I'll put him up a tree."

With this, he unchained Sounder and Don, and stalked off under the trees, looking like an Indian. Once the deepbay of Sounder rang out; Jones's sharp command followed, and then the familiar silence encompassed the forest andwas broken no more.

When I awoke all was gray, except toward the canyon, where the little bit of sky I saw through the pines glowed adelicate pink. I crawled out on the instant, got into my boots and coat, and kicked the smoldering fire. Jim heard me, andsaid:

"Shore you're up early."

"I'm going to see the sunrise from the north rim of the Grand Canon," I said, and knew when I spoke that very fewmen, out of all the millions of travelers, had ever seen this, probably the most surpassingly beautiful pageant in theworld. At most, only a few geologists, scientists, perhaps an artist or two, and horse wranglers, hunters andprospectors have ever reached the rim on the north side; and these men, crossing from Bright Angel or Mystic Springtrails on the south rim, seldom or never get beyond Powell's Plateau.

The frost cracked under my boots like frail ice, and the bluebells peeped wanly from the white. When I reached the

head of Clarke's trail it was just daylight; and there, under a pine, I found Jones rolled in his blankets, with Sounder andMoze asleep beside him. I turned without disturbing him, and went along the edge of the forest, but back a littledistance from the rim wall.

I saw deer off in the woods, and tarrying, watched them throw up graceful heads, and look and listen. The softpink glow through the pines deepened to rose, and suddenly I caught a point of red fire. Then I hurried to the place Ihad named Singing Cliffs, and keeping my eyes fast on the stone beneath me, trawled out to the very farthest point,drew a long, breath, and looked eastward.

The awfulness of sudden death and the glory of heaven stunned me! The thing that had been mystery at twilight,lay clear, pure, open in the rosy hue of dawn. Out of the gates of the morning poured a light which glorified the palacesand pyramids, purged and purified the afternoon's inscrutable clefts, swept away the shadows of the mesas, andbathed that broad, deep world of mighty mountains, stately spars of rock, sculptured cathedrals and alabaster terracesin an artist's dream of color. A pearl from heaven had burst, flinging its heart of fire into this chasm. A stream of opalflowed out of the sun, to touch each peak, mesa, dome, parapet, temple and tower, cliff and cleft into the new-born lifeof another day.

I sat there for a long time and knew that every second the scene changed, yet I could not tell how. I knew I sathigh over a hole of broken, splintered, barren mountains; I knew I could see a hundred miles of the length of it, andeighteen miles of the width of it, and a mile of the depth of it, and the shafts and rays of rose light on a million glancing,many-hued surfaces at once; but that knowledge was no help to me. I repeated a lot of meaningless superlatives tomyself, and I found words inadequate and superfluous. The spectacle was too elusive and too great. It was life anddeath, heaven and hell.

I tried to call up former favorite views of mountain and sea, so as to compare them with this; but the memorypictures refused to come, even with my eyes closed. Then I returned to camp, with unsettled, troubled mind, and wassilent, wondering at the strange feeling burning within me.

Jones talked about our visitor of the night before, and said the trail near where he had slept showed only onecougar track, and that led down into the canyon. It had surely been made, he thought, by the beast we had heard.Jones signified his intention of chaining several of the hounds for the next few nights at the head of this trail; so if thecougar came up, they would scent him and let us know. From which it was evident that to chase a lion bound into thecanyon and one bound out were two different things.

The day passed lazily, with all of us resting on the warm, fragrant pine-needle beds, or mending a rent in a coat, orworking on some camp task impossible of commission on exciting days.

About four o'clock, I took my little rifle and walked off through the woods in the direction of the carcass where Ihad seen the gray wolf. Thinking it best to make a wide detour, so as to face the wind, I circled till I felt the breeze wasfavorable to my enterprise, and then cautiously approached the hollow were the dead horse lay. Indian fashion, Islipped from tree to tree, a mode of forest travel not without its fascination and effectiveness, till I reached the height ofa knoll beyond which I made sure was my objective point. On peeping out from behind the last pine, I found I hadcalculated pretty well, for there was the hollow, the big windfall, with its round, starfish-shaped roots exposed to thebright sun, and near that, the carcass. Sure enough, pulling hard at it, was the gray-white wolf I recognized as my"lofer."

But he presented an exceedingly difficult shot. Backing down the ridge, I ran a little way to come up behindanother tree, from which I soon shifted to a fallen pine. Over this I peeped, to get a splendid view of the wolf. He hadstopped tugging at the horse, and stood with his nose in the air. Surely he could not have scented me, for the wind wasstrong from him to me; neither could he have heard my soft footfalls on the pine needles; nevertheless, he wassuspicious. Loth to spoil the picture he made, I risked a chance, and waited. Besides, though I prided myself on beingable to take a fair aim, I had no great hope that I could hit him at such a distance. Presently he returned to his feeding,but not for long. Soon he raised his long, fine-pointed head, and trotted away a few yards, stopped to sniff again, thenwent back to his gruesome work.

At this juncture, I noiselessly projected my rifle barrel over the log. I had not, however, gotten the sights in linewith him, when he trotted away reluctantly, and ascended the knoll on his side of the hollow. I lost him, and had justbegun sourly to call myself a mollycoddle hunter, when he reappeared. He halted in an open glade, on the very crest ofthe knoll, and stood still as a statue wolf, a white, inspiriting target, against a dark green background. I could not stifle arush of feeling, for I was a lover of the beautiful first, and a hunter secondly; but I steadied down as the front sight

moved into the notch through which I saw the black and white of his shoulder.

Spang! How the little Remington sang! I watched closely, ready to send five more missiles after the gray beast. Hejumped spasmodically, in a half-curve, high in the air, with loosely hanging head, then dropped in a heap. I yelled like aboy, ran down the hill, up the other side of the hollow, to find him stretched out dead, a small hole in his shoulder wherethe bullet had entered, a great one where it had come out.

The job I made of skinning him lacked some hundred degrees the perfection of my shot, but I accomplished it, andreturned to camp in triumph.

"Shore I knowed you'd plunk him," said Jim very much pleased. "I shot one the other day same way, when he wasfeedin' off a dead horse. Now thet's a fine skin. Shore you cut through once or twice. But he's only half lofer, the otherhalf in plain coyote. Thet accounts fer his feedin' on dead meat."

My naturalist host and my scientific friend both remarked somewhat grumpily that I seemed to get the best of allthe good things. I might have retaliated that I certainly had gotten the worst of all the bad jokes; but, being generouslyhappy over my prize, merely remarked: "If you want fame or wealth or wolves, go out and hunt for them."

Five o'clock supper left a good margin of day, in which my thoughts reverted to the canyon. I watched the purpleshadows stealing out of their caverns and rolling up about the base of the mesas. Jones came over to where I stood,and I persuaded him to walk with me along the rim wall. Twilight had stealthily advanced when we reached the SingingCliffs, and we did not go out upon my promontory, but chose a more comfortable one nearer the wall.

The night breeze had not sprung up yet, so the music of the cliffs was hushed.

"You cannot accept the theory of erosion to account for this chasm?" I asked my companion, referring to a formerconversation.

"I can for this part of it. But what stumps me is the mountain range three thousand feet high, crossing the desertand the canyon just above where we crossed the river. How did the river cut through that without the help of a split orearthquake?"

"I'll admit that is a poser to me as well as to you. But I suppose Wallace could explain it as erosion. He claims thiswhole western country was once under water, except the tips of the Sierra Nevada mountains. There came an uplift ofthe earth's crust, and the great inland sea began to run out, presumably by way of the Colorado. In so doing it cut outthe upper canyon, this gorge eighteen miles wide. Then came a second uplift, giving the river a much greater impetustoward the sea, which cut out the second, or marble canyon. Now as to the mountain range crossing the canyon atright angles. It must have come with the second uplift. If so, did it dam the river back into another inland sea, and thenwear down into that red perpendicular gorge we remember so well? Or was there a great break in the fold of granite,which let the river continue on its way? Or was there, at that particular point, a softer stone, like this limestone here,which erodes easily?"

"You must ask somebody wiser than I."

"Well, let's not perplex our minds with its origin. It is, and that's enough for any mind. Ah! listen! Now you willhear my Singing Cliffs."

From out of the darkening shadows murmurs rose on the softly rising wind. This strange music had a depressinginfluence; but it did not fill the heart with sorrow, only touched it lightly. And when, with the dying breeze, the songdied away, it left the lonely crags lonelier for its death.

The last rosy gleam faded from the tip of Point Sublime; and as if that were a signal, in all the clefts and canyonsbelow, purple, shadowy clouds marshaled their forces and began to sweep upon the battlements, to swing colossalwings into amphitheaters where gods might have warred, slowly to enclose the magical sentinels. Night intervened,and a moving, changing, silent chaos pulsated under the bright stars.

"How infinite all this is! How impossible to understand!" I exclaimed.

"To me it is very simple," replied my comrade. "The world is strange. But this canyon--why, we can see it all! Ican't make out why people fuss so over it. I only feel peace. It's only bold and beautiful, serene and silent."

With the words of this quiet old plainsman, my sentimental passion shrank to the true appreciation of the scene.

Self passed out to the recurring, soft strains of cliff song. I had been reveling in a species of indulgence, imagining Iwas a great lover of nature, building poetical illusions over storm-beaten peaks. The truth, told by one who had livedfifty years in the solitudes, among the rugged mountains, under the dark trees, and by the sides of the lonely streams,was the simple interpretation of a spirit in harmony with the bold, the beautiful, the serene, the silent.

He meant the Grand Canyon was only a mood of nature, a bold promise, a beautiful record. He meant thatmountains had sifted away in its dust, yet the canyon was young. Man was nothing, so let him be humble. Thiscataclysm of the earth, this playground of a river was not inscrutable; it was only inevitable--as inevitable as natureherself. Millions of years in the bygone ages it had lain serene under a half moon; it would bask silent under a raylesssun, in the onward edge of time.

It taught simplicity, serenity, peace. The eye that saw only the strife, the war, the decay, the ruin, or only the gloryand the tragedy, saw not all the truth. It spoke simply, though its words were grand: "My spirit is the Spirit of Time, ofEternity, of God. Man is little, vain, vaunting. Listen. To-morrow he shall be gone. Peace! Peace!"

CHAPTER 14.

ALL HEROES BUT ONE

As we rode up the slope of Buckskin, the sunrise glinted red-gold through the aisles of frosted pines, giving us ahunter's glad greeting.

With all due respect to, and appreciation of, the breaks of the Siwash, we unanimously decided that if cougarsinhabited any other section of canyon country, we preferred it, and were going to find it. We had often speculated onthe appearance of the rim wall directly across the neck of the canyon upon which we were located. It showed a longstretch of breaks, fissures, caves, yellow crags, crumbled ruins and clefts green with pinyon pine. As a crow flies, itwas only a mile or two straight across from camp, but to reach it, we had to ascend the mountain and head the canyonwhich deeply indented the slope.

A thousand feet or more above the level bench, the character of the forest changed; the pines grew thicker, andinterspersed among them were silver spruces and balsams. Here in the clumps of small trees and underbrush, we beganto jump deer, and in a few moments a greater number than I had ever seen in all my hunting experiences loped withinrange of my eye. I could not look out into the forest where an aisle or lane or glade stretched to any distance, withoutseeing a big gray deer cross it. Jones said the herds had recently come up from the breaks, where they had wintered.These deer were twice the size of the Eastern species, and as fat as well-fed cattle. They were almost as tame, too. A bigherd ran out of one glade, leaving behind several curious does, which watched us intently for a moment, then boundedoff with the stiff, springy bounce that so amused me.

Sounder crossed fresh trails one after another; Jude, Tige and Ranger followed him, but hesitated often, barkedand whined; Don started off once, to come sneaking back at Jones's stern call. But surly old Moze either would not orcould not obey, and away he dashed. Bang! Jones sent a charge of fine shot after him. He yelped, doubled up as ifstung, and returned as quickly as he had gone.

"Hyar, you white and black coon dog," said Jones, "get in behind, and stay there."

We turned to the right after a while and got among shallow ravines. Gigantic pines grew on the ridges and in thehollows, and everywhere bluebells shone blue from the white frost. Why the frost did not kill these beautiful flowerswas a mystery to me. The horses could not step without crushing them.

Before long, the ravines became so deep that we had to zigzag up and down their sides, and to force our horsesthrough the aspen thickets in the hollows. Once from a ridge I saw a troop of deer, and stopped to watch them. Twenty-seven I counted outright, but there must have been three times that number. I saw the herd break across a glade, andwatched them until they were lost in the forest. My companions having disappeared, I pushed on, and while workingout of a wide, deep hollow, I noticed the sunny patches fade from the bright slopes, and the golden streaks vanishamong the pines. The sky had become overcast, and the forest was darkening. The "Waa-hoo," I cried out returned inecho only. The wind blew hard in my face, and the pines began to bend and roar. An immense black cloud enveloped

Buckskin.

Satan had carried me no farther than the next ridge, when the forest frowned dark as twilight, and on the windwhirled flakes of snow. Over the next hollow, a white pall roared through the trees toward me. Hardly had I time to getthe direction of the trail, and its relation to the trees nearby, when the storm enfolded me. Of his own accord Satanstopped in the lee of a bushy spruce. The roar in the pines equaled that of the cave under Niagara, and the bewildering,whirling mass of snow was as difficult to see through as the tumbling, seething waterfall.

I was confronted by the possibility of passing the night there, and calming my fears as best I could, hastily felt formy matches and knife. The prospect of being lost the next day in a white forest was also appalling, but I soonreassured myself that the storm was only a snow squall, and would not last long. Then I gave myself up to the pleasureand beauty of it. I could only faintly discern the dim trees; the limbs of the spruce, which partially protected me, saggeddown to my head with their burden; I had but to reach out my hand for a snowball. Both the wind and snow seemedwarm. The great flakes were like swan feathers on a summer breeze. There was something joyous in the whirl of snowand roar of wind. While I bent over to shake my holster, the storm passed as suddenly as it had come. When I lookedup, there were the pines, like pillars of Parian marble, and a white shadow, a vanishing cloud fled, with receding roar, onthe wings of the wind. Fast on this retreat burst the warm, bright sun.

I faced my course, and was delighted to see, through an opening where the ravine cut out of the forest, the red-tipped peaks of the canyon, and the vaulted dome I had named St. Marks. As I started, a new and unexpected after-feature of the storm began to manifest itself. The sun being warm, even to melt the snow, and under the trees a heavyrain fell, and in the glades and hollows a fine mist blew. Exquisite rainbows hung from white-tipped branches andcurved over the hollows. Glistening patches of snow fell from the pines, and broke the showers.

In a quarter of an hour, I rode out of the forest to the rim wall on dry ground. Against the green pinyons Frank'swhite horse stood out conspicuously, and near him browsed the mounts of Jim and Wallace. The boys were not inevidence. Concluding they had gone down over the rim, I dismounted and kicked off my chaps, and taking my rifle andcamera, hurried to look the place over.

To my surprise and interest, I found a long section of rim wall in ruins. It lay in a great curve between the two giantcapes; and many short, sharp, projecting promontories, like the teeth of a saw, overhung the canyon. The slopesbetween these points of cliff were covered with a deep growth of pinyon, and in these places descent would be easy.Everywhere in the corrugated wall were rents and rifts; cliffs stood detached like islands near a shore; yellow cragsrose out of green clefts; jumble of rocks, and slides of rim wall, broken into blocks, massed under the promontories.

The singular raggedness and wildness of the scene took hold of me, and was not dispelled until the baying ofSounder and Don roused action in me. Apparently the hounds were widely separated. Then I heard Jim's yell. But itceased when the wind lulled, and I heard it no more. Running back from the point, I began to go down. The way wassteep, almost perpendicular; but because of the great stones and the absence of slides, was easy. I took long stridesand jumps, and slid over rocks, and swung on pinyon branches, and covered distance like a rolling stone. At the footof the rim wall, or at a line where it would have reached had it extended regularly, the slope became less pronounced. Icould stand up without holding on to a support. The largest pinyons I had seen made a forest that almost stood onend. These trees grew up, down, and out, and twisted in curves, and many were two feet in thickness. During mydescent, I halted at intervals to listen, and always heard one of the hounds, sometimes several. But as I descended for along time, and did not get anywhere or approach the dogs, I began to grow impatient.

A large pinyon, with a dead top, suggested a good outlook, so I climbed it, and saw I could sweep a large sectionof the slope. It was a strange thing to look down hill, over the tips of green trees. Below, perhaps four hundred yards,was a slide open for a long way; all the rest was green incline, with many dead branches sticking up like spars, and anoccasional crag. From this perch I heard the hounds; then followed a yell I thought was Jim's, and after it the bellowingof Wallace's rifle. Then all was silent. The shots had effectually checked the yelping of the hounds. I let out a yell.Another cougar that Jones would not lasso! All at once I heard a familiar sliding of small rocks below me, and Iwatched the open slope with greedy eyes.

Not a bit surprised was I to see a cougar break out of the green, and go tearing down the slide. In less than sixseconds, I had sent six steel-jacketed bullets after him. Puffs of dust rose closer and closer to him as each bullet wentnearer the mark and the last showered him with gravel and turned him straight down the canyon slope.

I slid down the dead pinyon and jumped nearly twenty feet to the soft sand below, and after putting a loaded clipin my rifle, began kangaroo leaps down the slope. When I reached the point where the cougar had entered the slide, I

called the hounds, but they did not come nor answer me. Notwithstanding my excitement, I appreciated the distance tothe bottom of the slope before I reached it. In my haste, I ran upon the verge of a precipice twice as deep as the first rimwall, but one glance down sent me shatteringly backward.

With all the breath I had left I yelled: "Waa-hoo! Waa-hoo!" From the echoes flung at me, I imagined at first thatmy friends were right on my ears. But no real answer came. The cougar had probably passed along this second rim wallto a break, and had gone down. His trail could easily be taken by any of the hounds. Vexed and anxious, I signaledagain and again. Once, long after the echo had gone to sleep in some hollow canyon, I caught a faint "Wa-a-ho-o-o!"But it might have come from the clouds. I did not hear a hound barking above me on the slope; but suddenly, to myamazement, Sounder's deep bay rose from the abyss below. I ran along the rim, called till I was hoarse, leaned over sofar that the blood rushed to my head, and then sat down. I concluded this canyon hunting could bear some sustainedattention and thought, as well as frenzied action.

Examination of my position showed how impossible it was to arrive at any clear idea of the depth or size, orcondition of the canyon slopes from the main rim wall above. The second wall--a stupendous, yellow-faced cliff twothousand feet high--curved to my left round to a point in front of me. The intervening canyon might have been a halfmile wide, and it might have been ten miles. I had become disgusted with judging distance. The slope above thissecond wall facing me ran up far above my head; it fairly towered, and this routed all my former judgments, because Iremembered distinctly that from the rim this yellow and green mountain had appeared an insignificant little ridge. But itwas when I turned to gaze up behind me that I fully grasped the immensity of the place. This wall and slope were thefirst two steps down the long stairway of the Grand Canyon, and they towered over me, straight up a half-mile in dizzyheight. To think of climbing it took my breath away.

Then again Sounder's bay floated distinctly to me, but it seemed to come from a different point. I turned my ear tothe wind, and in the succeeding moments I was more and more baffled. One bay sounded from below and next from farto the right; another from the left. I could not distinguish voice from echo. The acoustic properties of the amphitheaterbeneath me were too wonderful for my comprehension.

As the bay grew sharper, and correspondingly more significant, I became distracted, and focused a strained visionon the canyon deeps. I looked along the slope to the notch where the wall curved and followed the base line of theyellow cliff. Quite suddenly I saw a very small black object moving with snail-like slowness. Although it seemedimpossible for Sounder to be so small, I knew it was he. Having something now to judge distance from, I conceived it tobe a mile, without the drop. If I could hear Sounder, he could hear me, so I yelled encouragement. The echoes clappedback at me like so many slaps in the face. I watched the hound until he disappeared among broken heaps of stone, andlong after that his bay floated to me.

Having rested, I essayed the discovery of some of my lost companions or the hounds, and began to climb. BeforeI started, however, I was wise enough to study the rim wall above, to familiarize myself with the break so I would have alandmark. Like horns and spurs of gold the pinnacles loomed up. Massed closely together, they were not unlike anastounding pipe-organ. I had a feeling of my littleness, that I was lost, and should devote every moment and effort tothe saving of my life. It did not seem possible I could be hunting. Though I climbed diagonally, and rested often, myheart pumped so hard I could hear it. A yellow crag, with a round head like an old man's cane, appealed to me as nearthe place where I last heard from Jim, and toward it I labored. Every time I glanced up, the distance seemed the same. Aclimb which I decided would not take more than fifteen minutes, required an hour.

While resting at the foot of the crag, I heard more baying of hounds, but for my life I could not tell whether thesound came from up or down, and I commenced to feel that I did not much care. Having signaled till I was hoarse, andreceiving none but mock answers, I decided that if my companions had not toppled over a cliff, they were wiselywithholding their breath.

Another stiff pull up the slope brought me under the rim wall, and there I groaned, because the wall was smoothand shiny, without a break. I plodded slowly along the base, with my rifle ready. Cougar tracks were so numerous I gottired of looking at them, but I did not forget that I might meet a tawny fellow or two among those narrow passes ofshattered rock, and under the thick, dark pinyons. Going on in this way, I ran point-blank into a pile of bleached bonesbefore a cave. I had stumbled on the lair of a lion and from the looks of it one like that of Old Tom. I flinched twicebefore I threw a stone into the dark-mouthed cave. What impressed me as soon as I found I was in no danger of beingpawed and clawed round the gloomy spot, was the fact of the bones being there. How did they come on a slope wherea man could hardly walk? Only one answer seemed feasible. The lion had made his kill one thousand feet above, hadpulled his quarry to the rim and pushed it over. In view of the theory that he might have had to drag his victim from theforest, and that very seldom two lions worked together, the fact of the location of the bones as startling. Skulls of wild

horses and deer, antlers and countless bones, all crushed into shapelessness, furnished indubitable proof that thecarcasses had fallen from a great height. Most remarkable of all was the skeleton of a cougar lying across that of ahorse. I believed--I could not help but believe that the cougar had fallen with his last victim.

Not many rods beyond the lion den, the rim wall split into towers, crags and pinnacles. I thought I had found mypipe organ, and began to climb toward a narrow opening in the rim. But I lost it. The extraordinarily cut-up condition ofthe wall made holding to one direction impossible. Soon I realized I was lost in a labyrinth. I tried to find my way downagain, but the best I could do was to reach the verge of a cliff, from which I could see the canyon. Then I knew where Iwas, yet I did not know, so I plodded wearily back. Many a blind cleft did I ascend in the maze of crags. I could hardlycrawl along, still I kept at it, for the place was conducive to dire thoughts. A tower of Babel menaced me with tons ofloose shale. A tower that leaned more frightfully than the Tower of Pisa threatened to build my tomb. Many alighthouse-shaped crag sent down little scattering rocks in ominous notice.

After toiling in and out of passageways under the shadows of these strangely formed cliffs, and coming again andagain to the same point, a blind pocket, I grew desperate. I named the baffling place Deception Pass, and then ran downa slide. I knew if I could keep my feet I could beat the avalanche. More by good luck than management I outran theroaring stones and landed safely. Then rounding the cliff below, I found myself on a narrow ledge, with a wall to myleft, and to the right the tips of pinyon trees level with my feet.

Innocently and wearily I passed round a pillar-like corner of wall, to come face to face with an old lioness andcubs. I heard the mother snarl, and at the same time her ears went back flat, and she crouched. The same fire of yelloweyes, the same grim snarling expression so familiar in my mind since Old Tom had leaped at me, faced me here.

My recent vow of extermination was entirely forgotten and one frantic spring carried me over the ledge.

Crash! I felt the brushing and scratching of branches, and saw a green blur. I went down straddling limbs and hitthe ground with a thump. Fortunately, I landed mostly on my feet, in sand, and suffered no serious bruise. But I wasstunned, and my right arm was numb for a moment. When I gathered myself together, instead of being grateful theledge had not been on the face of Point Sublime--from which I would most assuredly have leaped--I was the angriestman ever let loose in the Grand Canyon.

Of course the cougars were far on their way by that time, and were telling neighbors about the brave hunter's leapfor life; so I devoted myself to further efforts to find an outlet. The niche I had jumped into opened below, as did mostof the breaks, and I worked out of it to the base of the rim wall, and tramped a long, long mile before I reached my owntrail leading down. Resting every five steps, I climbed and climbed. My rifle grew to weigh a ton; my feet were lead; thecamera strapped to my shoulder was the world. Soon climbing meant trapeze work--long reach of arm, and pull ofweight, high step of foot, and spring of body. Where I had slid down with ease, I had to strain and raise myself bysheer muscle. I wore my left glove to tatters and threw it away to put the right one on my left hand. I thought manytimes I could not make another move; I thought my lungs would burst, but I kept on. When at last I surmounted therim, I saw Jones, and flopped down beside him, and lay panting, dripping, boiling, with scorched feet, aching limbs andnumb chest.

"I've been here two hours," he said, "and I knew things were happening below; but to climb up that slide wouldkill me. I am not young any more, and a steep climb like this takes a young heart. As it was I had enough work. Look!"He called my attention to his trousers. They had been cut to shreds, and the right trouser leg was missing from theknee down. His shin was bloody. "Moze took a lion along the rim, and I went after him with all my horse could do. Iyelled for the boys, but they didn't come. Right here it is easy to go down, but below, where Moze started this lion, itwas impossible to get over the rim. The lion lit straight out of the pinyons. I lost ground because of the thick brush andnumerous trees. Then Moze doesn't bark often enough. He treed the lion twice. I could tell by the way he opened upand bayed. The rascal coon-dog climbed the trees and chased the lion out. That's what Moze did! I got to an openspace and saw him, and was coming up fine when he went down over a hollow which ran into the canyon. My horsetripped and fell, turning clear over with me before he threw me into the brush. I tore my clothes, and got this bruise, butwasn't much hurt. My horse is pretty lame."

I began a recital of my experience, modestly omitting the incident where I bravely faced an old lioness. Uponconsulting my watch, I found I had been almost four hours climbing out. At that moment, Frank poked a red face overthe rim. He was in shirt sleeves, sweating freely, and wore a frown I had never seen before. He puffed like a porpoise,and at first could hardly speak.

"Where were--you--all?" he panted. "Say! but mebbe this hasn't been a chase! Jim and Wallace an' me went

tumblin' down after the dogs, each one lookin' out for his perticilar dog, an' darn me if I don't believe his lion, too. Dontook one oozin' down the canyon, with me hot-footin' it after him. An' somewhere he treed thet lion, right below me, in abox canyon, sort of an offshoot of the second rim, an' I couldn't locate him. I blamed near killed myself more'n once.Look at my knuckles! Barked em slidin' about a mile down a smooth wall. I thought once the lion had jumped Don, butsoon I heard him barkin' again. All thet time I heard Sounder, an' once I heard the pup. Jim yelled, an' somebody wasshootin'. But I couldn't find nobody, or make nobody hear me. Thet canyon is a mighty deceivin' place. You'd neverthink so till you go down. I wouldn't climb up it again for all the lions in Buckskin. Hello, there comes Jim oozin' up."

Jim appeared just over the rim, and when he got up to us, dusty, torn and fagged out, with Don, Tige and Rangershowing signs of collapse, we all blurted out questions. But Jim took his time.

"Shore thet canyon is one hell of a place," he began finally. "Where was everybody? Tige and the pup went downwith me an' treed a cougar. Yes, they did, an' I set under a pinyon holdin' the pup, while Tige kept the cougar treed. Iyelled an' yelled. After about an hour or two, Wallace came poundin' down like a giant. It was a sure thing we'd get thecougar; an' Wallace was takin' his picture when the blamed cat jumped. It was embarrassin', because he wasn't politeabout how he jumped. We scattered some, an' when Wallace got his gun, the cougar was humpin' down the slope, an'he was goin' so fast an' the pinyons was so thick thet Wallace couldn't get a fair shot, an' missed. Tige an' the pup wasso scared by the shots they wouldn't take the trail again. I heard some one shoot about a million times, an' shorethought the cougar was done for. Wallace went plungin' down the slope an' I followed. I couldn't keep up with him--heshore takes long steps--an' I lost him. I'm reckonin' he went over the second wall. Then I made tracks for the top. Boys,the way you can see an' hear things down in thet canyon, an' the way you can't hear an' see things is pretty funny."

"If Wallace went over the second rim wall, will he get back to-day?" we all asked.

"Shore, there's no tellin'."

We waited, lounged, and slept for three hours, and were beginning to worry about our comrade when he hove insight eastward, along the rim. He walked like a man whose next step would be his last. When he reached us, he fell flat,and lay breathing heavily for a while.

"Somebody once mentioned Israel Putnam's ascent of a hill," he said slowly. "With all respect to history and apatriot, I wish to say Putnam never saw a hill!"

"Ooze for camp," called out Frank.

Five o'clock found us round a bright fire, all casting ravenous eyes at a smoking supper. The smell of the Persianmeat would have made a wolf of a vegetarian. I devoured four chops, and could not have been counted in the running.Jim opened a can of maple syrup which he had been saving for a grand occasion, and Frank went him one better withtwo cans of peaches. How glorious to be hungry--to feel the craving for food, and to be grateful for it, to realize that thebest of life lies in the daily needs of existence, and to battle for them!

Nothing could be stronger than the simple enumeration and statement of the facts of Wallace's experience after heleft Jim. He chased the cougar, and kept it in sight, until it went over the second rim wall. Here he dropped over aprecipice twenty feet high, to alight on a fan-shaped slide which spread toward the bottom. It began to slip and moveby jerks, and then started off steadily, with an increasing roar. He rode an avalanche for one thousand feet. The jarloosened bowlders from the walls. When the slide stopped, Wallace extricated his feet and began to dodge thebowlders. He had only time to jump over the large ones or dart to one side out of their way. He dared not run. He had towatch them coming. One huge stone hurtled over his head and smashed a pinyon tree below.

When these had ceased rolling, and he had passed down to the red shale, he heard Sounder baying near, andknew a cougar had been treed or cornered. Hurdling the stones and dead pinyons, Wallace ran a mile down the slope,only to find he had been deceived in the direction. He sheered off to the left. Sounder's illusive bay came up from adeep cleft. Wallace plunged into a pinyon, climbed to the ground, skidded down a solid slide, to come upon animpassable the obstacle in the form of a solid wall of red granite. Sounder appeared and came to him, evidently havinggiven up the chase.

Wallace consumed four hours in making the ascent. In the notch of the curve of the second rim wall, he climbedthe slippery steps of a waterfall. At one point, if he had not been six feet five inches tall he would have been compelledto attempt retracing his trail--an impossible task. But his height enabled him to reach a root, by which he pulled himselfup. Sounder he lassoed a la Jones, and hauled up. At another spot, which Sounder climbed, he lassoed a pinyonabove, and walked up with his feet slipping from under him at every step. The knees of his corduroy trousers were

holes, as were the elbows of his coat. The sole of his left boot, which he used most in climbing--was gone, and so washis hat.

CHAPTER 15.

JONES ON COUGARS

The mountain lion, or cougar, of our Rocky Mountain region, is nothing more nor less than the panther. He is alittle different in shape, color and size, which vary according to his environment. The panther of the Rockies is usuallylight, taking the grayish hue of the rocks. He is stockier and heavier of build, and stronger of limb than the Easternspecies, which difference comes from climbing mountains and springing down the cliffs after his prey.

In regions accessible to man, or where man is encountered even rarely, the cougar is exceedingly shy, seldom ornever venturing from cover during the day. He spends the hours of daylight high on the most rugged cliffs, sleepingand basking in the sunshine, and watching with wonderfully keen sight the valleys below. His hearing equals his sight,and if danger threatens, he always hears it in time to skulk away unseen. At night he steals down the mountain sidetoward deer or elk he has located during the day. Keeping to the lowest ravines and thickets, he creeps upon his prey.His cunning and ferocity are keener and more savage in proportion to the length of time he has been without food. Ashe grows hungrier and thinner, his skill and fierce strategy correspondingly increase. A well-fed cougar will creep uponand secure only about one in seven of the deer, elk, antelope or mountain sheep that he stalks. But a starving cougar isanother animal. He creeps like a snake, is as sure on the scent as a vulture, makes no more noise than a shadow, and hehides behind a stone or bush that would scarcely conceal a rabbit. Then he springs with terrific force, and intensity ofpurpose, and seldom fails to reach his victim, and once the claws of a starved lion touch flesh, they never let go.

A cougar seldom pursues his quarry after he has leaped and missed, either from disgust or failure, or knowledgethat a second attempt would be futile. The animal making the easiest prey for the cougar is the elk. About every otherelk attacked falls a victim. Deer are more fortunate, the ratio being one dead to five leaped at. The antelope, living onthe lowlands or upland meadows, escapes nine times out of ten; and the mountain sheep, or bighorn, seldom falls tothe onslaught of his enemy.

Once the lion gets a hold with the great forepaw, every movement of the struggling prey sinks the sharp, hookedclaws deeper. Then as quickly as is possible, the lion fastens his teeth in the throat of his prey and grips till it is dead.In this way elk have carried lions for many rods. The lion seldom tears the skin of the neck, and never, as is generallysupposed, sucks the blood of its victim; but he cuts into the side, just behind the foreshoulder, and eats the liver first.He rolls the skin back as neatly and tightly as a person could do it. When he has gorged himself, he drags the carcassinto a ravine or dense thicket, and rakes leaves, sticks or dirt over it to hide it from other animals. Usually he returns tohis cache on the second night, and after that the frequency of his visits depends on the supply of fresh prey. In remoteregions, unfrequented by man, the lion will guard his cache from coyote and buzzards.

In sex there are about five female lions to one male. This is caused by the jealous and vicious disposition of themale. It is a fact that the old Toms kill every young lion they can catch. Both male and female of the litter suffer alikeuntil after weaning time, and then only the males. In this matter wise animal logic is displayed by the Toms. Thedomestic cat, to some extent, possesses the same trait. If the litter is destroyed, the mating time is sure to come aboutregardless of the season. Thus this savage trait of the lions prevents overproduction, and breeds a hardy and intrepidrace. If by chance or that cardinal feature of animal life--the survival of the fittest--a young male lion escapes to theweaning time, even after that he is persecuted. Young male lions have been killed and found to have had their fleshbeaten until it was a mass of bruises and undoubtedly it had been the work of an old Tom. Moreover, old males andfemales have been killed, and found to be in the same bruised condition. A feature, and a conclusive one, is the factthat invariably the female is suckling her young at this period, and sustains the bruises in desperately defending herlitter.

It is astonishing how cunning, wise and faithful an old lioness is. She seldom leaves her kittens. From the timethey are six weeks old she takes them out to train them for the battles of life, and the struggle continues from birth todeath. A lion hardly ever dies naturally. As soon as night descends, the lioness stealthily stalks forth, and because ofher little ones, takes very short steps. The cubs follow, stepping in their mother's tracks. When she crouches for game,each little lion crouches also, and each one remains perfectly still until she springs, or signals them to come. If she

secures the prey, they all gorge themselves. After the feast the mother takes her back trail, stepping in the tracks shemade coming down the mountain. And the cubs are very careful to follow suit, and not to leave marks of their trail inthe soft snow. No doubt this habit is practiced to keep their deadly enemies in ignorance of their existence. The oldToms and white hunters are their only foes. Indians never kill a lion. This trick of the lions has fooled many a hunter,concerning not only the direction, but particularly the number.

The only successful way to hunt lions is with trained dogs. A good hound can trail them for several hours afterthe tracks have been made, and on a cloudy or wet day can hold the scent much longer. In snow the hound can trail forthree or four days after the track has been made.

When Jones was game warden of the Yellowstone National Park, he had unexampled opportunities to huntcougars and learn their habits. All the cougars in that region of the Rockies made a rendezvous of the game preserve.Jones soon procured a pack of hounds, but as they had been trained to run deer, foxes and coyotes he had greattrouble. They would break on the trail of these animals, and also on elk and antelope just when this was farthest fromhis wish. He soon realized that to train the hounds was a sore task. When they refused to come back at his call, hestung them with fine shot, and in this manner taught obedience. But obedience was not enough; the hounds mustknow how to follow and tree a lion. With this in mind, Jones decided to catch a lion alive and give his dogs practicallessons.

A few days after reaching this decision, he discovered the tracks of two lions in the neighborhood of Mt. Everett.The hounds were put on the trail and followed it into an abandoned coal shaft. Jones recognized this as hisopportunity, and taking his lasso and an extra rope, he crawled into the hole. Not fifteen feet from the opening sat oneof the cougars, snarling and spitting. Jones promptly lassoed it, passed his end of the lasso round a side prop of theshaft, and out to the soldiers who had followed him. Instructing them not to pull till he called, he cautiously began tocrawl by the cougar, with the intention of getting farther back and roping its hind leg, so as to prevent disaster whenthe soldiers pulled it out. He accomplished this, not without some uneasiness in regard to the second lion, and givingthe word to his companions, soon had his captive hauled from the shaft and tied so tightly it could not move.

Jones took the cougar and his hounds to an open place in the park, where there were trees, and prepared for achase. Loosing the lion, he held his hounds back a moment, then let them go. Within one hundred yards the cougarclimbed a tree, and the dogs saw the performance. Taking a forked stick, Jones mounted up to the cougar, caught itunder the jaw with the stick, and pushed it out. There was a fight, a scramble, and the cougar dashed off to run upanother tree. In this manner, he soon trained his hounds to the pink of perfection.

Jones discovered, while in the park, that the cougar is king of all the beasts of North America. Even a grizzlydashed away in great haste when a cougar made his appearance. At the road camp, near Mt. Washburn, during the fallof 1904, the bears, grizzlies and others, were always hanging round the cook tent. There were cougars also, and almostevery evening, about dusk, a big fellow would come parading past the tent. The bears would grunt furiously andscamper in every direction. It was easy to tell when a cougar was in the neighborhood, by the peculiar grunts andsnorts of the bears, and the sharp, distinct, alarmed yelps of coyotes. A lion would just as lief kill a coyote as any otheranimal and he would devour it, too. As to the fighting of cougars and grizzlies, that was a mooted question, with thecredit on the side of the former.

The story of the doings of cougars, as told in the snow, was intensely fascinating and tragic! How they stalkeddeer and elk, crept to within springing distance, then crouched flat to leap, was as easy to read as if it had been told inprint. The leaps and bounds were beyond belief. The longest leap on a level measured eighteen and one-half feet.Jones trailed a half-grown cougar, which in turn was trailing a big elk. He found where the cougar had struck his game,had clung for many rods, to be dashed off by the low limb of a spruce tree. The imprint of the body of the cougar was afoot deep in the snow; blood and tufts of hair covered the place. But there was no sign of the cougar renewing thechase.

In rare cases cougars would refuse to run, or take to trees. One day Jones followed the hounds, eight in number, tocome on a huge Tom holding the whole pack at bay. He walked to and fro, lashing his tail from side to side, and whenJones dashed up, he coolly climbed a tree. Jones shot the cougar, which, in falling, struck one of the hounds, cripplinghim. This hound would never approach a tree after this incident, believing probably that the cougar had sprung uponhim.

Usually the hounds chased their quarry into a tree long before Jones rode up. It was always desirable to kill theanimal with the first shot. If the cougar was wounded, and fell or jumped among the dogs, there was sure to be a terriblefight, and the best dogs always received serious injuries, if they were not killed outright. The lion would seize a hound,

pull him close, and bite him in the brain.

Jones asserted that a cougar would usually run from a hunter, but that this feature was not to be relied upon. Anda wounded cougar was as dangerous as a tiger. In his hunts Jones carried a shotgun, and shells loaded with ball for thecougar, and others loaded with fine shot for the hounds. One day, about ten miles from the camp, the hounds took atrail and ran rapidly, as there were only a few inches of snow. Jones found a large lion had taken refuge in a tree thathad fallen against another, and aiming at the shoulder of the beast, he fired both barrels. The cougar made no sign hehad been hit. Jones reloaded and fired at the head. The old fellow growled fiercely, turned in the tree and walked downhead first, something he would not have been able to do had the tree been upright. The hounds were ready for him, butwisely attacked in the rear. Realizing he had been shooting fine shot at the animal, Jones began a hurried search for ashell loaded with ball. The lion made for him, compelling him to dodge behind trees. Even though the hounds keptnipping the cougar, the persistent fellow still pursued the hunter. At last Jones found the right shell, just as the cougarreached for him. Major, the leader of the hounds, darted bravely in, and grasped the leg of the beast just in the nick oftime. This enabled Jones to take aim and fire at close range, which ended the fight. Upon examination, it was discoveredthe cougar had been half-blinded by the fine shot, which accounted for the ineffectual attempts he had made to catchJones.

The mountain lion rarely attacks a human being for the purpose of eating. When hungry he will often follow thetracks of people, and under favorable circumstances may ambush them. In the park where game is plentiful, no one hasever known a cougar to follow the trail of a person; but outside the park lions have been known to follow hunters, andparticularly stalk little children. The Davis family, living a few miles north of the park, have had children pursued to thevery doors of their cabin. And other families relate similar experiences. Jones heard of only one fatality, but he believesthat if the children were left alone in the woods, the cougars would creep closer and closer, and when assured therewas no danger, would spring to kill.

Jones never heard the cry of a cougar in the National Park, which strange circumstance, considering the greatnumber of the animals there, he believed to be on account of the abundance of game. But he had heard it when a boy inIllinois, and when a man all over the West, and the cry was always the same, weird and wild, like the scream of aterrified woman. He did not understand the significance of the cry, unless it meant hunger, or the wailing mourn of alioness for her murdered cubs.

The destructiveness of this savage species was murderous. Jones came upon one old Tom's den, where there wasa pile of nineteen elk, mostly yearlings. Only five or six had been eaten. Jones hunted this old fellow for months, andfound that the lion killed on the average three animals a week. The hounds got him up at length, and chased him to theYellowstone River, which he swam at a point impassable for man or horse. One of the dogs, a giant bloodhound namedJack, swam the swift channel, kept on after the lion, but never returned. All cougars have their peculiar traits andhabits, the same as other creatures, and all old Toms have strongly marked characteristics, but this one was the mostdestructive cougar Jones ever knew.

During Jones's short sojourn as warden in the park, he captured numerous cougars alive, and killed seventy-two.

CHAPTER 16.

KITTY

It seemed my eyelids had scarcely touched when Jones's exasperating, yet stimulating, yell aroused me. Day wasbreaking. The moon and stars shone with wan luster. A white, snowy frost silvered the forest. Old Moze had curledclose beside me, and now he gazed at me reproachfully and shivered. Lawson came hustling in with the horses. Jimbusied himself around the campfire. My fingers nearly froze while I saddled my horse.

At five o'clock we were trotting up the slope of Buckskin, bound for the section of ruined rim wall where we hadencountered the convention of cougars. Hoping to save time, we took a short cut, and were soon crossing deepravines.

The sunrise coloring the purple curtain of cloud over the canyon was too much for me, and I lagged on a highridge to watch it, thus falling behind my more practical companions. A far-off "Waa-hoo!" brought me to a realization of

the day's stern duty and I hurried Satan forward on the trail.

I came suddenly upon our leader, leading his horse through the scrub pinyon on the edge of the canyon, and Iknew at once something had happened, for he was closely scrutinizing the ground.

"I declare this beats me all hollow!" began Jones. "We might be hunting rabbits instead of the wildest animals onthe continent. We jumped a bunch of lions in this clump of pinyon. There must have been at least four. I thought firstwe'd run upon an old lioness with cubs, but all the trails were made by full-grown lions. Moze took one north along therim, same as the other day, but the lion got away quick. Frank saw one lion. Wallace is following Sounder down into thefirst hollow. Jim has gone over the rim wall after Don. There you are! Four lions playing tag in broad daylight on top ofthis wall! I'm inclined to believe Clarke didn't exaggerate. But confound the luck! the hounds have split again. They'redoing their best, of course, and it's up to us to stay with them. I'm afraid we'll lose some of them. Hello! I hear a signal.That's from Wallace. Waa-hoo! Waa-hoo! There he is, coming out of the hollow."

The tall Californian reached us presently with Sounder beside him. He reported that the hound had chased a lioninto an impassable break. We then joined Frank on a jutting crag of the canyon wall.

"Waa-hoo!" yelled Jones. There was no answer except the echo, and it rolled up out of the chasm with strange,hollow mockery.

"Don took a cougar down this slide," said Frank. "I saw the brute, an' Don was makin' him hump. A--ha! There!Listen to thet!"

From the green and yellow depths soared the faint yelp of a hound.

"That's Don! that's Don!" cried Jones. "He's hot on something. Where's Sounder? Hyar, Sounder! By George!there he goes down the slide. Hear him! He's opened up! Hi! Hi! Hi!"

The deep, full mellow bay of the hound came ringing on the clear air.

"Wallace, you go down. Frank and I will climb out on that pointed crag. Grey, you stay here. Then we'll have theslide between us. Listen and watch!"

From my promontory I watched Wallace go down with his gigantic strides, sending the rocks rolling and cracking;and then I saw Jones and Frank crawl out to the end of a crumbling ruin of yellow wall which threatened to gosplintering and thundering down into the abyss.

I thought, as I listened to the penetrating voice of the hound, that nowhere on earth could there be a granderscene for wild action, wild life. My position afforded a commanding view over a hundred miles of the noblest and mostsublime work of nature. The rim wall where I stood sheered down a thousand feet, to meet a long wooded slope whichcut abruptly off into another giant precipice; a second long slope descended, and jumped off into what seemed thegrave of the world. Most striking in that vast void were the long, irregular points of rim wall, protruding into the GrandCanyon. From Point Sublime to the Pink Cliffs of Utah there were twelve of these colossal capes, miles apart, somesharp, some round, some blunt, all rugged and bold. The great chasm in the middle was full of purple smoke. It seemeda mighty sepulcher from which misty fumes rolled upward. The turrets, mesas, domes, parapets and escarpments ofyellow and red rock gave the appearance of an architectural work of giant hands. The wonderful river of silt, the blood-red, mystic and sullen Rio Colorado, lay hidden except in one place far away, where it glimmered wanly. Thousands ofcolors were blended before my rapt gaze. Yellow predominated, as the walls and crags lorded it over the lower cliffs andtables; red glared in the sunlight; green softened these two, and then purple and violet, gray, blue and the darker huesshaded away into dim and distinct obscurity.

Excited yells from my companions on the other crag recalled me to the living aspect of the scene. Jones wasleaning far down in a niche, at seeming great hazard of life, yelling with all the power of his strong lungs. Frank stoodstill farther out on a cracked point that made me tremble, and his yell reenforced Jones's. From far below rolled up achorus of thrilling bays and yelps, and Jim's call, faint, but distinct on that wonderfully thin air, with its unmistakablenote of warning.

Then on the slide I saw a lion headed for the rim wall and climbing fast. I added my exultant cry to the medley, andI stretched my arms wide to that illimitable void and gloried in a moment full to the brim of the tingling joy of existence. Idid not consider how painful it must have been to the toiling lion. It was only the spell of wild environment, of perilousyellow crags, of thin, dry air, of voice of man and dog, of the stinging expectation of sharp action, of life.

I watched the lion growing bigger and bigger. I saw Don and Sounder run from the pinyon into the open slide, andheard their impetuous burst of wild yelps as they saw their game. Then Jones's clarion yell made me bound for myhorse. I reached him, was about to mount, when Moze came trotting toward me. I caught the old gladiator. When heheard the chorus from below, he plunged like a mad bull. With both arms round him I held on. I vowed never to let himget down that slide. He howled and tore, but I held on. My big black horse with ears laid back stood like a rock.

I heard the pattering of little sliding rocks below; stealthy padded footsteps and hard panting breaths, almost likecoughs; then the lion passed out of the slide not twenty feet away. He saw us, and sprang into the pinyon scrub withthe leap of a scared deer.

Samson himself could no longer have held Moze. Away he darted with his sharp, angry bark. I flung myself uponSatan and rode out to see Jones ahead and Frank flashing through the green on the white horse.

At the end of the pinyon thicket Satan overhauled Jones's bay, and we entered the open forest together. We sawFrank glinting across the dark pines.

"Hi! Hi!" yelled the Colonel.

No need was there to whip or spur those magnificent horses. They were fresh; the course was open, and smoothas a racetrack, and the impelling chorus of the hounds was in full blast. I gave Satan a loose rein, and he stayed neckand neck with the bay. There was not a log, nor a stone, nor a gully. The hollows grew wider and shallower as we racedalong, and presently disappeared altogether. The lion was running straight from the canyon, and the certainty that hemust sooner or later take to a tree, brought from me a yell of irresistible wild joy.

"Hi! Hi! Hi!" answered Jones.

The whipping wind with its pine-scented fragrance, warm as the breath of summer, was intoxicating as wine. Thehuge pines, too kingly for close communion with their kind, made wide arches under which the horses stretched outlong and low, with supple, springy, powerful strides. Frank's yell rang clear as a bell. We saw him curve to the right, andtook his yell as a signal for us to cut across. Then we began to close in on him, and to hear more distinctly the bayingof the hounds.

"Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!" bawled Jones, and his great trumpet voice rolled down the forest glades.

"Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!" I screeched, in wild recognition of the spirit of the moment.

Fast as they were flying, the bay and the black responded to our cries, and quickened, strained and lengthenedunder us till the trees sped by in blurs.

There, plainly in sight ahead ran the hounds, Don leading, Sounder next, and Moze not fifty yards, behind adesperately running lion.

There are all-satisfying moments of life. That chase through the open forest, under the stately pines, with the wild,tawny quarry in plain sight, and the glad staccato yelps of the hounds filling my ears and swelling my heart, with thesplendid action of my horse carrying me on the wings of the wind, was glorious answer and fullness to the call andhunger of a hunter's blood.

But as such moments must be, they were brief. The lion leaped gracefully into the air, splintering the bark from apine fifteen feet up, and crouched on a limb. The hounds tore madly round the tree.

"Full-grown female," said Jones calmly, as we dismounted, "and she's ours. We'll call her Kitty."

Kitty was a beautiful creature, long, slender, glossy, with white belly and black-tipped ears and tail. She did notresemble the heavy, grim-faced brute that always hung in the air of my dreams. A low, brooding menacing murmur, thatwas not a snarl nor a growl, came from her. She watched the dogs with bright, steady eyes, and never so much aslooked at us.

The dogs were worth attention, even from us, who certainly did not need to regard them from her personallyhostile point of view. Don stood straight up, with his forepaws beating the air; he walked on his hind legs like thetrained dog in the circus; he yelped continuously, as if it agonized him to see the lion safe out of his reach. Sounderhad lost his identity. Joy had unhinged his mind and had made him a dog of double personality. He had always beenunsocial with me, never responding to my attempts to caress him, but now he leaped into my arms and licked my face.

He had always hated Jones till that moment, when he raised his paws to his master's breast. And perhaps moreremarkable, time and time again he sprang up at Satan's nose, whether to bite him or kiss him, I could not tell. Then oldMoze, he of Grand Canyon fame, made the delirious antics of his canine fellows look cheap. There was a small, deadpine that had fallen against a drooping branch of the tree Kitty had taken refuge in, and up this narrow ladder Mozebegan to climb. He was fifteen feet up, and Kitty had begun to shift uneasily, when Jones saw him.

"Hyar! you wild coon hyar! Git out of that! Come down! Come down!"

But Jones might have been in the bottom of the canyon for all Moze heard or cared. Jones removed his coat,carefully coiled his lasso, and began to go hand and knee up the leaning pine.

"Hyar! dad-blast you, git down!" yelled Jones, and he kicked Moze off. The persistent hound returned, andfollowed Jones to a height of twenty feet, where again he was thrust off.

"Hold him, one of you!" called Jones.

"Not me," said Frank, "I'm lookin' out for myself."

"Same here," I cried, with a camera in one hand and a rifle inthe other. "Let Moze climb if he likes."

Climb he did, to be kicked off again. But he went back. It was a way he had. Jones at last recognized either his ownwaste of time or Moze's greatness, for he desisted, allowing the hound to keep close after him.

The cougar, becoming uneasy, stood up, reached for another limb, climbed out upon it, and peering down, spathissingly at Jones. But he kept steadily on with Moze close on his heels. I snapped my camera on them when Kitty wasnot more than fifteen feet above them. As Jones reached the snag which upheld the leaning tree, she ran out on herbranch, and leaped into an adjoining pine. It was a good long jump, and the weight of the animal bent the limbalarmingly.

Jones backed down, and laboriously began to climb the other tree. As there were no branches low down, he hadto hug the trunk with arms and legs as a boy climbs. His lasso hampered his progress. When the slow ascent wasaccomplished up to the first branch, Kitty leaped back into her first perch. Strange to say Jones did not grumble; noneof his characteristic impatience manifested itself. I supposed with him all the exasperating waits, vexatious obstacles,were little things preliminary to the real work, to which he had now come. He was calm and deliberate, and slid down thepine, walked back to the leaning tree, and while resting a moment, shook his lasso at Kitty. This action fitted him,somehow; it was so compatible with his grim assurance.

To me, and to Frank, also, for that matter, it was all new and startling, and we were as excited as the dogs. We keptcontinually moving about, Frank mounted, and I afoot, to get good views of the cougar. When she crouched as if toleap, it was almost impossible to remain under the tree, and we kept moving.

Once more Jones crept up on hands and knees. Moze walked the slanting pine like a rope performer. Kitty beganto grow restless. This time she showed both anger and impatience, but did not yet appear frightened. She growled lowand deep, opened her mouth and hissed, and swung her tufted tail faster and faster.

"Look out, Jones! look out!" yelled Frank warningly.

Jones, who had reached the trunk of the tree, halted and slipped round it, placing it between him and Kitty. Shehad advanced on her limb, a few feet above Jones, and threateningly hung over.

Jones backed down a little till she crossed to another branch, then he resumed his former position.

"Watch below," called he.

Hardly any doubt was there as to how we watched. Frank and I were all eyes, except very high and throbbinghearts. When Jones thrashed the lasso at Kitty we both yelled. She ran out on the branch and jumped. This time shefell short of her point, clutched a dead snag, which broke, letting her through a bushy branch from where she hunghead downward. For a second she swung free, then reaching toward the tree caught it with front paws, ran down like asquirrel, and leaped off when thirty feet from the ground. The action was as rapid as it was astonishing.

Like a yellow rubber ball she bounded up, and fled with the yelping hounds at her heels. The chase was short. At

the end of a hundred yards Moze caught up with her and nipped her. She whirled with savage suddenness, and lungedat Moze, but he cunningly eluded the vicious paws. Then she sought safety in another pine.

Frank, who was as quick as the hounds, almost rode them down in his eagerness. While Jones descended from hisperch, I led the two horses down the forest.

This time the cougar was well out on a low spreading branch. Jones conceived the idea of raising the loop of hislasso on a long pole, but as no pole of sufficient length could be found, he tried from the back of his horse. The baywalked forward well enough; when, however, he got under the beast and heard her growl, he reared and almost threwJones. Frank's horse could not be persuaded to go near the tree. Satan evinced no fear of the cougar, and withoutflinching carried Jones directly beneath the limb and stood with ears back and forelegs stiff.

"Look at that! look at that!" cried Jones, as the wary cougar pawed the loop aside. Three successive times didJones have the lasso just ready to drop over her neck, when she flashed a yellow paw and knocked the noose awry.Then she leaped far out over the waiting dogs, struck the ground with a light, sharp thud, and began to run with thespeed of a deer. Frank's cowboy training now stood us in good stead. He was off like a shot and turned the cougar fromthe direction of the canyon. Jones lost not a moment in pursuit, and I, left with Jones's badly frightened bay, got goingin time to see the race, but not to assist. For several hundred yards Kitty made the hounds appear slow. Don, beingswiftest, gained on her steadily toward the close of the dash, and presently was running under her upraised tail. On thenext jump he nipped her. She turned and sent him reeling. Sounder came flying up to bite her flank, and at the samemoment fierce old Moze closed in on her. The next instant a struggling mass whirled on the ground. Jones and Frank,yelling like demons, almost rode over it. The cougar broke from her assailants, and dashing away leaped on the firsttree. It was a half-dead pine with short snags low down and a big branch extending out over a ravine.

"I think we can hold her now," said Jones. The tree proved to be a most difficult one to climb. Jones made severalineffectual attempts before he reached the first limb, which broke, giving him a hard fall. This calmed me enough tomake me take notice of Jones's condition. He was wet with sweat and covered with the black pitch from the pines; hisshirt was slit down the arm, and there was blood on his temple and his hand. The next attempt began by placing agood-sized log against the tree, and proved to be the necessary help. Jones got hold of the second limb and pulledhimself up.

As he kept on, Kitty crouched low as if to spring upon him. Again Frank and I sent warning calls to him, but hepaid no attention to us or to the cougar, and continued to climb. This worried Kitty as much as it did us. She began tomove on the snags, stepping from one to the other, every moment snarling at Jones, and then she crawled up. The bigbranch evidently took her eye. She tried several times to climb up to it, but small snags close together made herdistrustful. She walked uneasily out upon two limbs, and as they bent with her weight she hurried back. Twice she didthis, each time looking up, showing her desire to leap to the big branch. Her distress became plainly evident; a childcould have seen that she feared she would fall. At length, in desperation, she spat at Jones, then ran out and leaped.She all but missed the branch, but succeeded in holding to it and swinging to safety. Then she turned to her tormentor,and gave utterance to most savage sounds. As she did not intimidate her pursuer, she retreated out on the branch,which sloped down at a deep angle, and crouched on a network of small limbs.

When Jones had worked up a little farther, he commanded a splendid position for his operations. Kitty wassomewhat below him in a desirable place, yet the branch she was on joined the tree considerably above his head. Jonescast his lasso. It caught on a snag. Throw after throw he made with like result. He recoiled and recast nineteen times, tomy count, when Frank made a suggestion.

"Rope those dead snags an' break them off."

This practical idea Jones soon carried out, which left him a clear path. The next fling of the lariat caused the cougarangrily to shake her head. Again Jones sent the noose flying. She pulled it off her back and bit it savagely.

Though very much excited, I tried hard to keep sharp, keen faculties alert so as not to miss a single detail of thethrilling scene. But I must have failed, for all of a sudden I saw how Jones was standing in the tree, something I had notbefore appreciated. He had one hand hold, which he could not use while recoiling the lasso, and his feet rested upon aprecariously frail-appearing, dead snag. He made eleven casts of the lasso, all of which bothered Kitty, but did notcatch her. The twelfth caught her front paw. Jones jerked so quickly and hard that he almost lost his balance, and hepulled the noose off. Patiently he recoiled the lasso.

"That's what I want. If I can get her front paw she's ours. My idea is to pull her off the limb, let her hang there, andthen lasso her hind legs."

Another cast, the unlucky thirteenth, settled the loop perfectly round her neck. She chewed on the rope with herfront teeth and appeared to have difficulty in holding it.

"Easy! Easy! Ooze thet rope! Easy!" yelled the cowboy.

Cautiously Jones took up the slack and slowly tightened the nose, then with a quick jerk, fastened it close roundher neck.

We heralded this achievement with yells of triumph that made the forest ring.

Our triumph was short-lived. Jones had hardly moved when the cougar shot straight out into the air. The lassocaught on a branch, hauling her up short, and there she hung in mid-air, writhing, struggling and giving utterance tosounds terribly human. For several seconds she swung, slowly descending, in which frenzied time I, with rulingpassion uppermost, endeavored to snap a picture of her.

The unintelligible commands Jones was yelling to Frank and me ceased suddenly with a sharp crack of breakingwood. Then crash! Jones fell out of the tree. The lasso streaked up, ran over the limb, while the cougar dropped pell-mell into the bunch of waiting, howling dogs.

The next few moments it was impossible for me to distinguish what actually transpired. A great flutter of leaveswhirled round a swiftly changing ball of brown and black and yellow, from which came a fiendish clamor.

Then I saw Jones plunge down the ravine and bounce here and there in mad efforts to catch the whipping lasso.He was roaring in a way that made all his former yells merely whispers. Starting to run, I tripped on a root, fell prone onmy face into the ravine, and rolled over and over until I brought up with a bump against a rock.

What a tableau rivited my gaze! It staggered me so I did not think of my camera. I stood transfixed not fifteen feetfrom the cougar. She sat on her haunches with body well drawn back by the taut lasso to which Jones held tightly. Donwas standing up with her, upheld by the hooked claws in his head. The cougar had her paws outstretched; her mouthopen wide, showing long, cruel, white fangs; she was trying to pull the head of the dog to her. Don held back with allhis power, and so did Jones. Moze and Sounder were tussling round her body. Suddenly both ears of the dog pulledout, slit into ribbons. Don had never uttered a sound, and once free, he made at her again with open jaws. One blowsent him reeling and stunned. Then began again that wrestling whirl.

"Beat off the dogs! Beat off the dogs!" roared Jones. "She'll kill them! She'll kill them!"

Frank and I seized clubs and ran in upon the confused furry mass, forgetful of peril to ourselves. In the wildcontagion of such a savage moment the minds of men revert wholly to primitive instincts. We swung our clubs andyelled; we fought all over the bottom of the ravine, crashing through the bushes, over logs and stones. I actually feltthe soft fur of the cougar at one fleeting instant. The dogs had the strength born of insane fighting spirit. At last wepulled them to where Don lay, half-stunned, and with an arm tight round each, I held them while Frank turned to helpJones.

The disheveled Jones, bloody, grim as death, his heavy jaw locked, stood holding to the lasso. The cougar, hersides shaking with short, quick pants, crouched low on the ground with eyes of purple fire.

"For God's sake, get a half-hitch on the saplin'!" called the cowboy.

His quick grasp of the situation averted a tragedy. Jones was nearly exhausted, even as he was beyond thinkingfor himself or giving up. The cougar sprang, a yellow, frightful flash. Even as she was in the air, Jones took a quick stepto one side and dodged as he threw his lasso round the sapling. She missed him, but one alarmingly outstretched pawgrazed his shoulder. A twist of Jones's big hand fastened the lasso--and Kitty was a prisoner. While she fought, rolled,twisted, bounded, whirled, writhed with hissing, snarling fury, Jones sat mopping the sweat and blood from his face.

Kitty's efforts were futile; she began to weaken from the choking. Jones took another rope, and tightening a noosearound her back paws, which he lassoed as she rolled over, he stretched her out. She began to contract her supplebody, gave a savage, convulsive spring, which pulled Jones flat on the ground, then the terrible wrestling startedagain. The lasso slipped over her back paws. She leaped the whole length of the other lasso. Jones caught it andfastened it more securely; but this precaution proved unnecessary, for she suddenly sank down either exhausted orchoked, and gasped with her tongue hanging out. Frank slipped the second noose over her back paws, and Jones didlikewise with a third lasso over her right front paw. These lassoes Jones tied to different saplings.

"Now you are a good Kitty," said Jones, kneeling by her. He took a pair of clippers from his hip pocket, andgrasping a paw in his powerful fist he calmly clipped the points of the dangerous claws. This done, he called to me toget the collar and chain that were tied to his saddle. I procured them and hurried back. Then the old buffalo hunterloosened the lasso which was round her neck, and as soon as she could move her head, he teased her to bite a club.She broke two good sticks with her sharp teeth, but the third, being solid, did not break. While she was chewing itJones forced her head back and placed his heavy knee on the club. In a twinkling he had strapped the collar round herneck. The chain he made fast to the sapling. After removing the club from her mouth he placed his knee on her neck,and while her head was in this helpless position he dexterously slipped a loop of thick copper wire over her nose,pushed it back and twisted it tight Following this, all done with speed and precision, he took from his pocket a piece ofsteel rod, perhaps one-quarter of an inch thick, and five inches long. He pushed this between Kitty's jaws, just back ofher great white fangs, and in front of the copper wire. She had been shorn of her sharp weapons; she was muzzled,bound, helpless, an object to pity.

Lastly Jones removed the three lassoes. Kitty slowly gathered her lissom body in a ball and lay panting, with thesame brave wildfire in her eyes. Jones stroked her black-tipped ears and ran his hand down her glossy fur. All the timehe had kept up a low monotone, talking to her in the strange language he used toward animals. Then he rose to his feet.

"We'll go back to camp now, and get a pack, saddle and horse," he said. "She'll be safe here. We'll rope her again,tie her up, throw her over a pack-saddle, and take her to camp."

To my utter bewilderment the hounds suddenly commenced fighting among themselves. Of all the vicious bloodydog-fights I ever saw that was the worst. I began to belabor them with a club, and Frank sprang to my assistance.Beating had no apparent effect. We broke a dozen sticks, and then Frank grappled with Moze and I with Sounder. Donkept on fighting either one till Jones secured him. Then we all took a rest, panting and weary.

"What's it mean?" I ejaculated, appealing to Jones.

"Jealous, that's all. Jealous over the lion."

We all remained seated, men and hounds, a sweaty, dirty, bloody, ragged group. I discovered I was sorry for Kitty.I forgot all the carcasses of deer and horses, the brutality of this species of cat; and even forgot the grim, snarlingyellow devil that had leaped at me. Kitty was beautiful and helpless. How brave she was, too! No sign of fear shone inher wonderful eyes, only hate, defiance, watchfulness.

On the ride back to camp Jones expressed himself thus: "How happy I am that I can keep this lion and the otherswe are going to capture, for my own. When I was in the Yellowstone Park I did not get to keep one of the many Icaptured. The military officials took them from me."

When we reached camp Lawson was absent, but fortunately Old Baldy browsed near at hand, and was easilycaught. Frank said he would rather take Old Baldy for the cougar than any other horse we had. Leaving me in camp, heand Jones rode off to fetch Kitty.

About five o'clock they came trotting up through the forest with Jim, who had fallen in with them on the way. OldBaldy had remained true to his fame--nothing, not even a cougar bothered him. Kitty, evidently no worse for herexperience, was chained to a pine tree about fifty feet from the campfire.

Wallace came riding wearily in, and when he saw the captive, he greeted us with an exultant yell. He got there justin time to see the first special features of Kitty's captivity. The hounds surrounded her, and could not be called off. Wehad to beat them. Whereupon the six jealous canines fell to fighting among themselves, and fought so savagely as tobe deaf to our cries and insensible to blows. They had to be torn apart and chained.

About six o'clock Lawson loped in with the horses. Of course he did not know we had a cougar, and no oneseemed interested enough to inform him. Perhaps only Frank and I thought of it; but I saw a merry snap in Frank's eyes,and kept silent. Kitty had hidden behind the pine tree. Lawson, astride Jones' pack horse, a crochety animal, reined injust abreast of the tree, and leisurely threw his leg over the saddle. Kitty leaped out to the extent of her chain, and fairlyexploded in a frightful cat-spit.

Lawson had stated some time before that he was afraid of cougars, which was a weakness he need not havedivulged in view of what happened. The horse plunged, throwing him ten feet, and snorting in terror, stampeded withthe rest of the bunch and disappeared among the pines.

"Why the hell didn't you tell a feller?" reproachfully growled the Arizonian. Frank and Jim held each other upright,and the rest of us gave way to as hearty if not as violent mirth.

We had a gay supper, during which Kitty sat her pine and watched our every movement.

"We'll rest up for a day or two," said Jones "Things have commenced to come our way. If I'm not mistaken we'llbring an old Tom alive into camp. But it would never do for us to get a big Tom in the fix we had Kitty to-day. You see, Iwanted to lasso her front paw, pull her off the limb, tie my end of the lasso to the tree, and while she hung I'd go downand rope her hind paws. It all went wrong to-day, and was as tough a job as I ever handled."

Not until late next morning did Lawson corral all the horses. That day we lounged in camp mending broken bridles,saddles, stirrups, lassoes, boots, trousers, leggins, shirts and even broken skins.

During this time I found Kitty a most interesting study. She reminded me of an enormous yellow kitten. She did notappear wild or untamed until approached. Then she slowly sank down, laid back her ears, opened her mouth and hissedand spat, at the same time throwing both paws out viciously. Kitty may have rested, but did not sleep. At times shefought her chain, tugging and straining at it, and trying to bite it through. Everything in reach she clawed, particularlythe bark of the tree. Once she tried to hang herself by leaping over a low limb. When any one walked by her shecrouched low, evidently imagining herself unseen. If one of us walked toward her, or looked at her, she did not crouch.At other times, noticeably when no one was near, she would roll on her back and extend all four paws in the air. Heractions were beautiful, soft, noiseless, quick and subtle.

The day passed, as all days pass in camp, swiftly and pleasantly, and twilight stole down upon us round theruddy fire. The wind roared in the pines and lulled to repose; the lonesome, friendly coyote barked; the bells on thehobbled horses jingled sweetly; the great watch stars blinked out of the blue.

The red glow of the burning logs lighted up Jones's calm, cold face. Tranquil, unalterable and peaceful it seemed;yet beneath the peace I thought I saw a suggestion of wild restraint, of mystery, of unslaked life.

Strangely enough, his next words confirmed my last thought.

"For forty years I've had an ambition. It's to get possession of an island in the Pacific, somewhere betweenVancouver and Alaska, and then go to Siberia and capture a lot of Russian sables. I'd put them on the island and crossthem with our silver foxes. I'm going to try it next year if I can find the time."

The ruling passion and character determine our lives. Jones was sixty-three years old, yet the thing that had ruledand absorbed his mind was still as strong as the longing for freedom in Kitty's wild heart.

Hours after I had crawled into my sleeping-bag, in the silence of night I heard her working to get free. In darknessshe was most active, restless, intense. I heard the clink of her chain, the crack of her teeth, the scrape of her claws. Howtireless she was. I recalled the wistful light in her eyes that saw, no doubt, far beyond the campfire to the yellow crags,to the great downward slopes, to freedom. I slipped my elbow out of the bag and raised myself. Dark shadows werehovering under the pines. I saw Kitty's eyes gleam like sparks, and I seemed to see in them the hate, the fear, the terrorshe had of the clanking thing that bound her!

I shivered, perhaps from the cold night wind which moaned through the pines; I saw the stars glittering pale andfar off, and under their wan light the still, set face of Jones, and blanketed forms of my other companions.

The last thing I remembered before dropping into dreamless slumber was hearing a bell tinkle in the forest, which Irecognized as the one I had placed on Satan.

CHAPTER 17.

CONCLUSION

Kitty was not the only cougar brought into camp alive. The ensuing days were fruitful of cougars and adventure.There were more wild rides to the music of the baying hounds, and more heart-breaking canyon slopes to conquer, and

more swinging, tufted tails and snarling savage faces in the pinyons. Once again, I am sorry to relate, I had to glancedown the sights of the little Remington, and I saw blood on the stones. Those eventful days sped by all too soon.

When the time for parting came it took no little discussion to decide on the quickest way of getting me to arailroad. I never fully appreciated the inaccessibility of the Siwash until the question arose of finding a way out. Toreturn on our back trail would require two weeks, and to go out by the trail north to Utah meant half as much time overthe same kind of desert. Lawson came to our help, however, with the information that an occasional prospector or horsehunter crossed the canyon from the Saddle, where a trail led down to the river.

"I've heard the trail is a bad one," said Lawson, "an' though I never seen it, I reckon it could be found. After weget to the Saddle we'll build two fires on one of the high points an' keep them burnin' well after dark. If Mr. Bass, wholives on the other side, sees the fires he'll come down his trail next mornin' an' meet us at the river. He keeps a boatthere. This is takin' a chance, but I reckon it's worth while."

So it was decided that Lawson and Frank would try to get me out by way of the canyon; Wallace intended to goby the Utah route, and Jones was to return at once to his range and his buffalo.

That night round the campfire we talked over the many incidents of the hunt. Jones stated he had never in his lifecome so near getting his "everlasting" as when the big bay horse tripped on a canyon slope and rolled over him.Notwithstanding the respect with which we regarded his statement we held different opinions. Then, with the unfailingoptimism of hunters, we planned another hunt for the next year.

"I'll tell you what," said Jones. "Up in Utah there's a wild region called Pink Cliffs. A few poor sheep-herders try toraise sheep in the valleys. They wouldn't be so poor if it was not for the grizzly and black bears that live on the sheep.We'll go up there, find a place where grass and water can be had, and camp. We'll notify the sheep-herders we are therefor business. They'll be only too glad to hustle in with news of a bear, and we can get the hounds on the trail by sun-up. I'll have a dozen hounds then, maybe twenty, and all trained. We'll put every black bear we chase up a tree, and we'llrope and tie him. As to grizzlies--well, I'm not saying so much. They can't climb trees, and they are not afraid of a packof hounds. If we rounded up a grizzly, got him cornered, and threw a rope on him--there'd be some fun, eh, Jim?"

"Shore there would," Jim replied.

On the strength of this I stored up food for future thought and thus reconciled myself to bidding farewell to thepurple canyons and shaggy slopes of Buckskin Mountain.

At five o'clock next morning we were all stirring. Jones yelled at the hounds and untangled Kitty's chain. Jim wasalready busy with the biscuit dough. Frank shook the frost off the saddles. Wallace was packing. The merry jangle ofbells came from the forest, and presently Lawson appeared driving in the horses. I caught my black and saddled him,then realizing we were soon to part I could not resist giving him a hug.

An hour later we all stood at the head of the trail leading down into the chasm. The east gleamed rosy red. Powell'sPlateau loomed up in the distance, and under it showed the dark-fringed dip in the rim called the Saddle. Blue mistfloated round the mesas and domes.

Lawson led the way down the trail. Frank started Old Baldy with the pack.

"Come," he called, "be oozin' along."

I spoke the last good-by and turned Satan into the narrow trail. When I looked back Jones stood on the rim withthe fresh glow of dawn shining on his face. The trail was steep, and claimed my attention and care, but time and timeagain I gazed back. Jones waved his hand till a huge jutting cliff walled him from view. Then I cast my eyes on therough descent and the wonderful void beneath me. In my mind lingered a pleasing consciousness of my last sight ofthe old plainsman. He fitted the scene; he belonged there among the silent pines and the yellow crags.